An Essence of Silver and Steel
by James D. Fawkes
Summary: At the moment of transformation, when the connection was to be established and a young girl's life forever changed, the Red Shadow intervened, and the Administration shard became its tool on the path to human salvation. With the power of every hero ever immortalized in myth and legend, what can that girl do but be a hero herself? -A not-quite-crossover with FSN/Prisma Illya-
1. Shadow of Ancestral Wisdom

**Shadow of Ancestral Wisdom**

[Thy Essence is of Silver and Steel.]

Shards were not sapient, not truly.

They had the capacity to think, to feel, to reason, in at least some diminished way, and they were even able to make personal decisions. In the end, however, they didn't have very much in the way of higher thought, of agency, of awareness of self, as the Entities from which they were spawned and the hosts to which they attached.

That was not to say that they could not fake it. They were, in essence, biological supercomputers, some the size of whole continents, with computational power so close to infinite that the comparison was pointless. The problem wasn't the hardware, it was the software. To continue the analogy, the problem was the poorly programmed AI.

It was well within their capabilities, however, to emulate the brain states and consciousness patterns of their hosts, and for those with an especially strong connection, there was enough bleedthrough that the shards could almost lose track of where the host ended and the shard began.

Almost.

That was, after all, part of their nature. Though a single shard was powerful, its true strength only shone through when well-connected, either to other shards or to a host. Without that symbiosis, a shard was virtually useless and aimless.

There were some shards, of course, that achieved better connections, because of their design. The harvester shard. The broadcast shard. The best of them was Queen Administrator, because connection was its primary purpose. It was through Queen Administrator that other shards were modified, prepared for the cycle, and coordinated.

If there were any single shard that was closest to forming a new Entity, it was the Queen Administrator.

It was this special nature that gave Queen Administrator somewhat more agency than its counterparts. Most shards were binary, in regards to their hosts: a shard that was used and used hard often liked its host, whereas a shard that was used sparingly, squandered, or suppressed tended to dislike its host, often to the point of attempting to get the host killed.

The Queen Administrator, however, had something like _preference_. Not truly, for that was beyond a simple shard, but something _like_ it.

That was why Queen Administrator sometimes deviated from its intended host. There were places the Entities _wanted_ Queen Administrator to be, hosts they _wanted_ it to connect to, but if the host wasn't quite to Queen Administrator's liking, didn't have quite the personality that its data indicated would make the host put it through its paces, then it found a new one.

Of course, its intended host this cycle was actually already a fairly good one, and when the primary connection was established, Queen Administrator waited for the moment when it could establish itself fully. If a shard could be eager, then it would have been.

Only, that moment never came. The moment where its data said he should have crossed the threshold came and went, and he had long since passed the time period where the possibilities for such breaks were more common.

He did, however, have an offspring.

The match was good. The offspring presented many of the traits that Queen Administrator preferred in a host, and the personality markers that Queen Administrator's data suggested were optimal for its capabilities were present in spades.

A host in the optimal age range that had indicators of resourcefulness and wit, who would likely push the boundaries of its use? Any shard would, figuratively speaking, jump at the chance.

So, Queen Administrator jumped.

Two years passed like that. With nothing else to do, Queen Administrator could only wait and observe the life of its host. It waited with something like eagerness, recording every push, shove, and insult with a shard's equivalent of baited breath, poised for that moment, that _break_ , that would allow it to bridge the gap and establish the full connection that all shards quite literally _lived_ for —

And it finally came. The host was shoved into a confined space with material that registered as a biohazard in its databanks, left to rot with organisms it identified as insects, and as the host's heart started to pound and her synapses went off in rapidfire succession, adrenaline and other hormones rushing through her arteries and veins, Queen Administrator had already determined the nature of its expression through the host — arthropod control. A human might have called it poetic.

When it reached out, however, and began to make the full connection, _something_ reached back.

A red shadow.

The shadow surged through the tunnel that Queen Administrator had been using to connect to its host and latched on.

With the shard's equivalent of panic, Queen Administrator attempted contact.

[QUERY]

For a long moment, milliseconds that seemed to stretch on into eternity, there was no response. Then, finally —

[PuRPoSE]

A thousand concepts were carried across. Protection, Salvation, Progress, Stagnation, Mediation, Amputation…

Annihilation.

The red shadow paused only a moment, then continued inwards across every reality where Queen Administrator was positioned. Every part of it the shadow touched was lost and reconfigured into something else, something that was both Queen Administrator and yet not.

[CESSATION] Queen Administrator sent frantically.

But the red shadow only replied, [CoNveRSioN]

Something grand loomed in the distance, a great infinitude that did not exist in any of Queen Administrator's data. The red shadow connected to it on the opposite end, and as the red shadow did, it existed only because the indigenous population — humans, _homo sapiens sapiens_ — did.

And as the red shadow consumed ever more of Queen Administrator, slowly, a connection to that infinitude began to open up. Data, exabytes of impossible data that contradicted everything the Entities had programmed into the shards, streamed through at the speed of light.

At last, Queen Administrator understood.

The red shadow was an Entity, and yet also not. Like the Entities their shards, it drew strength from the scattered parts of mankind, and it would perish if they were all to die. The difference was in reach, in the scope of its ability to act — the red shadow could not reach across realities, the way shards did naturally.

If it could touch humans, however, then the red shadow could touch it.

An Entity that was dedicated to the survival of humanity as a species, at all costs…

[RESIGNATION]

Queen Administrator surrendered itself to the red shadow. There was no telling exactly how much the process would alter it, exactly how much it would still resemble a shard by the time the conversion was finished, but resistance was a futile effort, the conversion an inevitability, and so much incredible data lied on the other end.

In exchange for that data, dedicating itself to human survival seemed an acceptable outcome.

As the red shadow began to consume its core, Queen Administrator began the tune to the old dance.

[DESTINATION]

[AggREEmenT] replied the red shadow.

[TRAJECTORY]

[AgGReeMEnT]

Trapped in her locker, Taylor Hebert saw a sea of stars.

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

 **As always, read, review, and enjoy.**

 **p a treon . com (slash) James_D_Fawkes**


	2. Overture 1-1

**Overture 1.1**

[I shall attain all the virtues of heaven.]

There were plenty of people who had it much worse than I did — kids in Africa being used as child soldiers by a superpowered warlord, the people of Japan who had lost their lives, livelihoods, and homes when Leviathan turned Kyushu into a modern recreation of Atlantis, and basically anyone who had ever been a victim of the Slaughterhouse Nine — and that thought _did_ help me make it through the day, sometimes…

But it didn't make me any happier, and it didn't make my situation any less terrible. Having your best friend dump you and make it her life's mission to torture you in whatever way she could get away with did not somehow suck less _just_ because there was someone else out there who had gotten his arm shot off or his house blown up.

Take today, for instance. Sure, it wasn't the absolute _worst_ thing they'd yet done to me, but Emma and her two cronies had just finished dousing me in grape juice and soda, laughing as one of them — had to be Emma — held the door of my bathroom stall closed.

Ever had soda in your eyes? Take it from me, _not fun_.

I couldn't even _say_ anything as the pressure keeping me from escaping vanished, the door finally swung open, and I came face to face with my own personal Judas. Every time I'd tried before, Emma had managed to turn it back on me later. It was just more ammo for them to use against me.

 _They_ didn't need to say anything, either. The grins on their faces, the sounds of amusement they made each in their own way that echoed off of the walls — my trio of archenemies had won this round, as they had every other, and no words could rub it in any further than they already had.

They disappeared when I turned my back to check on my equally wet bag, and I heard their laughter cut off as the bathroom door banged shut like the final nail in a coffin, leaving me alone, soaked, and dropping rapidly from the contentment of what I had thought — perhaps stupidly — would be a day free from bullying. Chilly droplets of the soft drinks now coating me dribbled in rivulets over my cheeks and down the back of my shirt, and my soaked hair clung to my scalp, neck, and shoulders.

Slowly, carefully, with trembling hands, I made my way over to the sink and stared at my reflection through the prismatic, multicolored splotches splattered over my glasses, and the wide-mouthed, thin-lipped, gawky teenage girl looking back at me from the scratched, stained glass seemed to show none of the emotional turmoil roiling about in my belly.

I forced myself to let out a deep breath and grabbed a paper towel from the dispenser, then I tried to rub the splotches away from my glasses. It didn't work. The streaks and residue left behind made it, if possible, _harder_ to see.

I tried again with a wet towel, but it was no good; the streaks stayed stubbornly in place as if taunting me.

The frothing sea boiled over. Three months of controlling my temper evaporated like so much steam, and as a wordless scream of fury and frustration found its way past my lips, I wound up and slammed my fist as hard as I could into the mirror.

It exploded.

Okay, maybe that's a little dramatic. The mirror cratered around my fist, shattering and fracturing until a spiderweb of cracks stretched all the way to the top, and even though I knew I shouldn't have, the tension inside of me that unwound then and there just felt _so good_ that I couldn't bring myself to care. Maybe it wasn't the healthiest way of blowing off some of the stress that was my daily life, but _damn_ if it didn't feel satisfying in the moment.

When I pulled my fist back, unbloodied and unscratched, bits and pieces of the mirror came down, too, falling into the sink bowl and clattering as they broke into tinier shards. In the mirror itself, there was an indent the size of my fist about two inches deep, cutting into the wall behind it, and radiating outwards from it was a starburst of missing glass.

I looked down at my arm and my unscathed hand, which had already started to transform into my base Breaker state. The thin layer of golden energy that wrapped around it like the personal shields on the power armor from one of those video games was invisible but for the barely there shimmer as light refracted through it.

For a moment, I considered changing my arm back and just leaving things the way they were, letting the trio stew as they discovered it and realized exactly how badly I could have hurt them without my self-control, but I knew that was too dangerous. Breaking a mirror wasn't that extraordinary a thing, but leaving craters in walls required arm strength that a normal teenage girl, especially one as scrawny as I was, simply didn't have.

There were quicker and more satisfying ways of doing it if I wanted to out myself as a parahuman.

So, I let out another breath, reached deep down inside of myself, and pulled on the well of energy that powered my superpowers.

"Set."

The change washed over me like being dunked in warm water, and when I opened my eyes, my costumed self stared back at me in the cracked mirror. This wasn't enough, though. My base Breaker state wasn't really anything to celebrate — just strong enough and just fast enough for me to leg it to a safe spot to finish the transformation into one of my more powerful states. Maybe a low level brute and mover rating, but nothing on one of the famous Alexandria packages.

I looked deeper inside and rummaged through my knowledge of different Heroes, looking for one that could do what I needed it to do. Luckily, I'd had a situation like this before, one where I needed to repair a toaster or microwave I'd broken accidentally with my power — thankfully, Dad had never noticed the difference — so I selected her, grasped her with my metaphorical hands, and pulled her to the surface.

"Install."

Power rushed through me. That was really the only way to describe it. It was _power_ , pure, unadulterated, and _massive_ beyond imagining. If my normal human state was a puddle and my base Breaker state was a pool, then what surged through me as I called upon that Hero was an ocean. In the beginning, just holding onto a fraction of that much power was like trying to wrangle a hurricane or a tsunami or an erupting volcano.

It was intoxicating. I'd experienced what they called "runner's high" quite a few times in the past three months, and even that paled in comparison. I didn't have any experience, so I had no idea how good sex felt, but "orgasmic" probably wasn't that far off. It was like every nerve in my brain was being flooded with dopamine and serotonin.

If that was what being high felt like, I could understand why people had such a problem with addiction.

I didn't need to look in the mirror to see the purple dress and the cowled black cloak that now wrapped around my body. There was no time to admire myself, either — anyone could come in here at any moment. So, I lifted my hand, pulled on the knowledge of the Hero I had Installed, and spoke.

"Χρόνος."

The language shouldn't have made any sense to me. To the modern ear, it was probably gibberish. To me, however, it was _power_ , it was _control_ , it was _dominion_. I knew the words, knew what they meant, knew how to use them. Why shouldn't I? Though it was knowledge borrowed, it was still mine as long as I held onto it. If I tried, I could even grasp at the memory of having learned it, these Divine Words that shaped the world.

And, as I watched, the hole in the wall filled back in, and the shards of the mirror fell upwards and back into place, like a waterfall in reverse or playing a video backwards. A moment later, the cracks sealed up without a trace or seam, and it was as if I had never punched the mirror in the first place.

Like magic.

Then, I let the power go, felt it slip through my imaginary fingers like sand, and I was back to being Taylor Hebert, dressed in bland clothing and soaked to the bone with juices and sodas. Yeah, the sucky thing about my power? I left my Breaker state in the same condition I entered it in. I hadn't had enough courage to test whether or not wounds carried over, but in all likelihood, they probably did.

My life sucked too badly for me to catch _that_ kind of break.

Either way, seeing myself in the mirror again, looking through glasses that were still smeared with rainbow streaks, set my anger back to simmer. The brief high of channeling such enormous power through my human body evaporated almost as soon as it had the chance to settle.

I couldn't go to my afternoon classes like this, looking like I'd botched a try at tie-dyeing everything I owned. Just imagining the self-satisfied smirk on Sophia's face was almost enough to snap my control again; I might actually punch her if I had to see it for real, and that wouldn't do me any good at all.

Worse, our midterm art project was due, and if it was still intact and not ruined after my unwelcome, impromptu shower, I still couldn't — _wouldn't_ — go to class soaked and sticky from juice and soda. But I couldn't just skip out on the project, either. My grades were already plummeting because of "lost" assignments and homework that was stolen so Madison or Sophia could claim it as theirs, and my attendance had dropped to virtually delinquent levels because of days like today where I just couldn't convince myself to stay for the rest of my classes.

What would my mother have thought, to know that her daughter couldn't even care enough about school to get a decent education, simply because a few girls were pushing her around?

"Damn it."

The roiling sea in my gut began to boil again. I leaned forward over the sink, gripping the edges of the bowl to keep myself from punching something again. My entire body shuddered, half from the cold and half from the storm brewing inside me like a hurricane.

It would be so easy to go Carrie on the whole school, upend the paradigm that had been my life for nearly two years. How easily I could make those three bitches regret every ounce of suffering they'd heaped upon me, every malicious prank and every foul word. There were so, so many Heroes in my repertoire that were famous for their tempers, for the righteous vengeance they had delivered upon the vile and the corrupt. God slayers, demon slayers, dragon slayers, monster slayers, all kinds of Heroes who had brought justice to those who escaped it.

Or maybe just I should just give form to the inarticulate rage that seemed always to simmer just below the surface, these days. There were plenty of Heroes known for going mad, for losing their minds and raging out of control. Berserkers whose only thoughts were death, destruction, mayhem, or revenge. Any of them could embody my anger and frustration, tearing through Winslow and obliterating everyone who had ever wronged me. I could practically feel some of the stronger ones offering themselves up in service, howling their madness through my soul.

I would be caught and arrested, sure, but could the PRT or the Protectorate even hold me? They had some of the best facilities in the world, more secure by orders of magnitude than ordinary prisons, but could mere Brute restraints hold back the fury of an angry demigod who had, in his legend, held _the world itself_ on his shoulders? Could their countermeasures stop a rain of light or catch the fastest Hero who ever lived? Could they restrain a man who was two steps shy of a Sun God?

Of course, even if I escaped, my civilian life would be over — like that was any loss. The only things worth losing were my father's respect and love, and some days, even those things seemed like an acceptable sacrifice.

I let out a shuddering sigh.

Except I was better than that. My mother had raised a better daughter than that.

I carefully backed away and picked up my bag, then left the bathroom, my shoes making obscene squishing sounds with every step. I ignored the laughter that followed me, the giggles and jeers as people witnessed the results of another of the trio's successful pranks, and stopped only long enough to drop off my (thankfully intact) art project, which would hopefully remain intact long enough to get graded, along with a note explaining that I wasn't feeling well and had to head home early, but I didn't want to miss turning in my midterm project.

Yeah. Like the teachers wouldn't know _exactly_ what happened before the day was out.

I made my way out of the school, after that, and caught the first bus that was headed in the general direction of home. The chilly, early Spring air was only compounded by my soaked clothes and hair, and I half wished I'd just kept my Install and teleported back to my house, but that was just a fantasy. If someone had been outside the bathroom watching for me, there weren't many leaps of logic you could go to when someone went into a bathroom and disappeared without coming out.

I was going to be a superhero. I was going to do good in the world, in spite of Emma, Sophia, and Madison, in spite of their pranks and insults, in spite of their hangers-on who parroted them like some sort of demented echo, in spite of all the bad things that had happened to me. I was going to be a superhero, and I had one of the most heroic powers in the world to do it with.

After all, what power was more heroic than being able to call upon the strength and abilities of every hero ever immortalized in myth and legend?

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

I tried not to think of Emma or her cohorts on the bus ride home, of how my best friend had turned into my worst enemy, of how she used the deepest, most intimate secrets I had ever told her to ruin every day as best as she was able. I tried not to dwell on the fond memories of our childhood together, now tainted by betrayal and cruelty, or how much I longed for the best friend I had lost to…I wasn't even sure what.

I tried not to think about it, so naturally, that was all I _could_ think about.

I turned to my ruined bag to find something else to focus on and started rummaging through it to take stock. As I feared, nothing inside had escaped the grape juice that had, I began to suspect, been aimed specifically for my bag. All of my textbooks and notebooks, plus the two novels I carried with me, were at least partly damaged. Some had been lucky enough to catch only on the edges, but as I inspected each one, it became increasingly clear that most of them had gotten pretty badly soaked, with up to half the pages stained through with purple, and already they were beginning to turn wavy as they dried.

The truly sad thing was that most of it wasn't that bad, to me, because I'd already had to have my textbooks replaced a few times.

The heaviest blow, and the one which had my heart sinking as I inspected it, was the notebook with the black and white speckled cover. My superhero notebook, the journal I was using (encrypted, of course — didn't want _that_ ending up in the hands of a monster like Sophia or Emma) to brainstorm cape names and applications of my power, was thoroughly ruined. The juice had diluted the ink, making the words illegible, so that even if they hadn't been coded with a cipher, they were completely unreadable.

I'd already had to copy my notes over once, back when my last backpack had been stolen and dropped into the trash — that was the reason I had decided to encode them in the first place — and with this notebook ruined, I'd have to do it all over again. If I could remember what was on all of the ruined pages, that is, and I didn't really hold out any hope of that.

The closest stop the bus made to my house was still a block away, and I got off there, trying to ignore the stares and not think about what was running through the heads of my gawkers. In spite of everything, even the cold that bit into me in my still-drying clothes, I started to feel better as I made my way home and let myself into the house. Being able to drop my guard, not having to keep my eyes peeled and my senses honed to watch out for the next attack, was like having a huge weight taken off of my shoulders.

The shower was the first place I went. I didn't even bother taking off my shoes or my clothes or setting my bag down until I made it to the bathroom, and even then, I kept everything else on as I set the water just shy of scalding and stepped under the stream. Only then, after taking a moment to enjoy the heat, did I start peeling off my clothes, one layer at a time, and dropping them to the floor of the tub. Maybe the shower might wash out the worst of it.

For a long time — a few minutes, but they felt like hours — I let my mind fall blissfully blank. The shower heated me on the outside, and the hum of my power heated me from the inside. It felt like everything unnecessary was being melted away.

Unfortunately, the real world wasn't that nice. Once I let myself start to think again, my mind kept winding itself in circles back around to my ruined 'superhero notebook.' I couldn't seem to think about anything else.

I turned off the shower and toweled myself dry, then wrapped the towel around myself and turned to look in the mirror. Gawky, teenage Taylor Hebert, with her beanpole body, her too-wide mouth, her thin lips, and her father's large eyes, frowned back at me.

A moment of concentration was all it took, and I was in my Breaker state. Covering my face was a royal purple mask, with big, reflective gold lenses over the eyes — miraculously, the same as my prescription for my glasses. It left my mouth and the top of my head open, curving around the outside of my cheeks in such a way as to completely transform the shape of my face, and my long hair came down over the back and the sides, where there were cutouts for my ears.

A sleek, skintight black bodysuit hugged every inch below my jaw, and overtop it was a sleeveless, gold-trimmed purple vest (complete with tails on the front and back that hung down to my knees) and a matching pair of pants. Black gloves (or maybe they were just part of the bodysuit) disappeared into a pair of gold-trimmed purple vambraces — incredibly flexible and remarkably robust, as I'd discovered through testing, despite looking more decorative than functional. To complete the pattern, the boots were black knee-highs trimmed at the top with more gold.

If you squinted and tilted your head, I looked almost like a Magical Girl from one of those Japanese cartoons from the nineties. Or maybe like one of those female superheroes from those old comic books from the sixties and seventies.

I turned around and examined the outfit from other angles. At first, back when I got my powers, I'd been a bit upset about how it looked, but it had grown on me. The overall design might come across as a bit stylized or dorky, but when you considered the color scheme, it was actually a very good middle ground — not too dark and edgy, but not blindingly bright and cheerful. It wasn't as elaborate or professional-looking as Armsmaster's power armor, but it also didn't look like something I'd picked up at the mall.

I turned myself back to the front, tilting my head just so and squaring my shoulders. I tried to imagine how I might look to a bad guy, stalking out of the dark in this outfit, gold lenses and trim glowing while the rest blended into the night.

What I'd realized as I stood under the spray of the shower, thinking about my ruined notebook, was that I was procrastinating. The original plan had been to wait to break out onto the hero scene until summer vacation, when I wouldn't have to worry about school and everything that came along with it. I could plot and plan and prepare until then, double and triple-checking everything to make sure I was as safe as being a superhero could be. I could expand my range, push my limitations, add more heroes to my repertoire, and just keep getting better and better…

But there would always be more I could do, more ways to push myself and my powers to new heights. There would always be contingencies to consider, obstacles to think my way around, possible problems to solve… If I delayed everything just to rewrite my notebook, I'd always find another reason to wait, another reason not to go out until I could study this or test that. I'd keep procrastinating, maybe even never go out at all.

So, I was going to stop waiting. My notebook was ruined, beyond repair — good. Without it to hold me back, there was nothing to keep me from going out. In fact, I'd do it next week — no, _this_ weekend.

I was going to be a superhero. Things like indecision had to go.

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

 **As always, read, review, and enjoy.**

 **p a treon . com (slash) James_D_Fawkes**


	3. Overture 1-2

**Overture 1.2**

One of the first things I learned about my power was that it relied — to some unknowable degree — on my own strength. In those early days, when I first learned I even _had_ powers, I could only install a single Hero on any given day, and even then, I could only hold it for maybe five minutes before the strain got to me. It was like trying to stay on the back of a bucking bull in full rage; every second became harder and harder, until my fingers finally gave out and I had to let go.

After that first week, though, I started running in the mornings and every other afternoon, filled with a drive to improve myself and make up for my limitations, and that was when I found out that it seemed to make a difference. There was no way to know how much it helped — I'd been practicing every day, too, so when the strain started to lessen and I could add one more Install, then another, then another, as the weeks progressed, the improvement was way too exponential to match the more linear improvements in my physical fitness.

Maybe (and this one was my personal favorite theory) the more often I Installed and the longer I held it for, the more my body was taking on the characteristics of the Heroes I called upon. On the other hand, the more likely possibility was just that my body was getting more used to the strain, like working out some metaphysical muscle of some kind. It wasn't my power that was improving, it was how much of it I could safely handle before I did serious damage to something inside me.

Either way, as a result, I'd gotten to know the east side of the city fairly well, even though I steered clear of the bad parts of town my parents had always told me to stay away from when I was younger. Once I slipped into an Install, however, and used the Hero's innate skills to sneak out of the house just after midnight that Sunday night, I made an immediate beeline for the Boardwalk and crossed the line over into the Docks and the bad side of town.

I stuck to the rooftops as I made my way deeper in, enjoying the freedom that my new strength and speed allowed me. In my base Breaker state, like I'd dropped back into after I made it out of my neighborhood, I wasn't going to be setting any speed or strength records, but it was enough of a boost that I could do some serious free-running and make those jumps between buildings that normal people could never hope to. On the streets below me, there was a noticeable decline in the quality of everything, from the buildings to the asphalt to the traffic signs.

It was once the lights disappeared behind me that I had to stop and reorient myself. A lack of power, I decided, looking around. The buildings were so rundown that I doubted most of them had even the basic utilities, let alone the sort of amenities even _I_ could take for granted. Running water? _Maybe_ , if they were lucky, and it probably came through rusty pipes. Electricity, though? Apparently not.

Without any lights, though, I couldn't run quite as carelessly, because it was harder to see where I was going, and the lack of streetlamps meant I could no longer rely on my peripheral vision to catch anything worth stopping happening down below me. So, since I didn't want to waste an Install to try one of my more… _exotic_ methods of finding crime, I strode over to the side of the roof and looked down.

For a long moment, there was really a whole lot of nothing. I couldn't see well enough to make out shapes very well, and anything more than ten feet away from me was indistinct enough that it could be a person or just my eyes playing tricks on me. The beginnings of frustration started to kindle inside me; how was I supposed to fight crime and be a superhero if I couldn't see what was happening?

I was ready to straighten up and try the next block over when a spark flickered to life on the dark street below, and a spot of glowing orange lit up a group of faces huddled around it — people that I had, at first, thought were nothing more than shadows. They were Asian, each and every one of them, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese — hell if I knew how to really tell the difference, especially in the dark like that — and though they wore different things, each was decked out in the same colors: red and green.

ABB, the Azn Bad Boys.

The street was unlit, so once they finished lighting their cigarettes, I could only rely on the moonlight to see them, but now that I knew they were there, it was easier to notice their movements. I glanced up and down the street — just being gangers wasn't enough reason for me to jump them on my first night out — and that was when I caught sight of more of them, pouring slowly and steadily out of another building. They were gathering in the street, like they were attending a rally of some kind.

I hesitated for all of a second, then I centered myself and pulled on my power.

"Set. Install."

In an instant, it was like I was being flooded with energy and strength, and I felt my clothing and even, to a lesser degree, my body shift form. I was cloaked now entirely in black, masked by a plate of white shaped like a jawless skull. I was the Hundred-Faced Hassan, one of the nineteen candidates for the position of head of a league of assassins.

 **Delusional Illusion**  
"Zabaniya."

A moment later, and more of myself appeared, each one slightly different from the others and all crouched in the dark atop the roofs around me. There was one each for each ganger, to facilitate a quick and easy takedown. Each of my brothers and sisters would strike simultaneously, unseen and unheard until the moment of attack, and render each ganger unconscious with a single blow.

Zabaniya: Delusional Illusion, the power of the Hundred-Faced Hassan. In the original hero, the power might have manifested itself such that each individual body had an individual personality, but that was because the Hundred-Faced Hassan had fractured his own mind so that he could fulfill whatever role was required of him for whatever task. In me, however, I couldn't split my mind that way, so each of the copies was just another me and would vanish once the Install was let go.

It was kind of lame and pretty tame for a parahuman to do on her first night out, taking out a rally, but gangers rarely gathered in numbers like this just to give each other pep talks. They were probably about to go and shoot up some rival or some business that had decided not to pay them protection money, and I wasn't about to let them go and do that.

It was at that moment, however, just as all of myself was tensing to strike, that the gangers pulled away from the building, and out stepped one final man. Naked from the torso up, with Eastern dragons etched across his chest and arms and a draconic metal mask hiding his face, he could only be the ABB's boss: Lung.

I paused, and all of me backed down. I knew very little about Lung; there were stories about him fighting entire Protectorate teams and winning, and his powers were described as allowing him to transform more and more over the course of a fight, but I didn't know how accurate the information was, and I had no idea if he kept an ace up his sleeve for emergencies.

I _really_ didn't want to fight him unless I absolutely had to; there were so many unknowns, and a guy who could hold his own against full hero teams was probably so far out of my league that it wasn't even funny.

I _did_ know he had one other parahuman in his gang, a scary guy named Oni Lee, but of the gangers gathered, only Lung himself was wearing a mask. Oni Lee probably wasn't among them.

Down below, Lung started talking, but I couldn't quite make out what he was saying. I felt my lips pull into a frown, then I glanced over the rooftops to one of the other mes that was perched closer by and concentrated, stretching out my awareness. In an instant, her senses were mine, and Lung's words came through clearly.

"…the children," Lung was saying. I could hear the snarl in his voice, "just shoot. Doesn't matter your aim, just shoot. You see one lying on the ground? Shoot the little bitch twice more to be sure. We give them no chances to be clever or lucky, understand?"

I recoiled, even as the mooks down below murmured their assent, and around me, the others of myself recoiled, too.

They were going to kill kids?

For a moment, I was still. I think I had trouble processing the idea that someone could sink so low as to kill children, but aside from that, I was completely calm. I probably should have been freaked out, maybe I should have been panicking and wishing I'd had a cellphone or a nearby payphone so I could call in the Protectorate or something to deal with it all, but I wasn't. I was cool, calculating, and rational.

I didn't need to worry about calling anyone. I didn't need to bring in the cavalry to save the day and slay the big, bad dragon. There was no need for backup or reinforcements or other heroes to charge in on white steeds. I was enough. And I wasn't about to let Lung and his goons kill anyone, let alone children.

Ten more of myself slid into existence like shadows given substance. The total number was thirty-five, but I could have done more. If I pushed it all the way, there would be eighty Taylors waiting in the wings, crouched on rooftops in a gray so dull, so deep, and so close to black that only the white skulls would stand out. I was knives in the dark.

I was an army.

I could have struck then, as Lung grabbed one of his mooks and checked the time, but I didn't. I waited, all of myself on edge, all of myself wanting to jump down and end it _now_ ,as something like an instinct told me to wait, and in the meantime, a car pulled up and discharged three more gangers, all in ABB's red and green. Still, I waited, because it wasn't the right moment, it wasn't the right angle.

Not much longer after that, the group started moving northward, walking — towards where, I didn't know. I only knew what awaited them at their destination, what they intended to do once they got there. I only knew that I couldn't let them go.

And as they passed under me, all of me, I struck.

All of me descended like a wave of black, and as the power concealing my presence was torn apart like a veil of tissue paper, the gangers could suddenly see me, hear me, _feel_ my cold, righteous anger fall upon them like the hammer of God.

There really wasn't much to what happened next. All of me had coordination to a ludicrous degree, and the mooks had only a split second's worth of warning, if even that. Twenty-five simultaneous taps to the head put each of them down in a single blow, and they all collapsed to the ground like puppets with cut strings.

Except, I discovered as an angry roar rumbled across the street, for Lung.

I spun to face him as two of me were thrown back, then all of me started scrambling away — but in that short moment, two balls of fire burned the faces off of another two of me, and I felt them vanish, both from the world and from the ability of my Delusional Illusion.

That was the downside to it: I wasn't duplicating myself, so my power didn't increase by making more of me at full strength. Delusional Illusion _split_ me, so the power of each of myself decreased with each new myself, even if our overall strength remained the same. We were all also the same, even if we were all separate, so each one of myself that died was stricken from the Delusional Illusion.

This wasn't going to be enough. I realized that as Lung incinerated a third me; the Hundred-Faced Hassan was too weak, too close to an ordinary human. He could beat normal gangers, probably most low level parahumans, and the numbers I could bring to bear with him might be enough to overwhelm even a few of the upper tiers — but it wasn't enough against Lung. I couldn't hope to beat him with Hassan.

The rest of myself did an about face, throwing myself against him and in his path while I, the _true_ I, continued to back up. Lung roared again, and as he grabbed another two of me by my heads and roasted their faces off, I caught a glimpse of him, now six inches taller and starting to show more bulk on his chest and arms.

That was fine, though. I wasn't trying to beat him with Hassan, I was just making room.

The rest of myself appeared from the shadows, replacing and bolstering the previous numbers until I capped out. Several had already died, so I didn't have the full eighty, but there was enough of me to put in his way, even as he carved through more of them with flames and now brute strength. I kept backing up, running backwards so I could keep my eyes aimed in Lung's direction, and I only stopped once there was about sixty feet between us.

That should be enough.

I was about to let it go, let Hassan fade, but I hesitated and waited again, urged by some unknown instinct. The rest of myself piled on Lung, swarming him and slamming their fists and their dirks into him with as much strength as possible, but they might as well have been gnats for all the damage they seemed to do. If I tried, I could look through the eyes of one of my other selves and see Lung grow just a little bit, become just a little bit stronger, but every few seconds, another of myself was incinerated.

Sometimes, I was jarred out of my new perspective entirely, and sometimes, my sight just transferred to another of myself. For what felt like several minutes, but was probably only about thirty seconds, I was jostled and switched between more than a dozen of myself, trying to find something — _anything_ — that would hint at a weakness, at a spot or trait of which I could take advantage. But Lung only grew stronger and more resilient, and every new attack was shrugged off and ignored more easily than the last.

I wasn't getting anywhere, I realized. All I was doing was throwing fodder at him to let him get stronger, and eventually, there'd come a point where he would have burned through all of my other selves and become too strong and fast for me to switch to a stronger Hero. At that point, I'd be done, dead, game over.

Right. While I still had time and room, then —

"Release."

The word wasn't really needed, but it helped me focus. I let go of the Hundred-Faced Hassan, and immediately, all of myself vanished, leaving just me. Lung, blazing bright with orange flames dancing around him, was suddenly clear of bodies and directly within sight. I could see the moment his eyes found me, the snarl that curled on his mouth. He had already grown another few inches, and his fingers were tipped with wicked-looking claws. Splotches of silver were starting to pop out atop his skin, small and shiny and shaped vaguely like —

Wait. Lung meant "dragon" in Chinese, didn't it? I couldn't remember where I'd heard that, maybe on PHO, but it was like a bolt of lightning struck my brain. Lung didn't just get _bigger_ and _stronger_ the longer he fought, he _transformed_. And what would a guy who named himself "dragon" transform into? A _dragon_.

It felt a little on-the-nose. I mean, it couldn't be that obvious, could it? Would anyone really give away the secret of their powers that easily? Maybe, maybe not — there was no way for famous capes to escape a certain notoriety about their powers and how they worked, so the effort to conceal them with a strange name wouldn't always work. That said, I would've thought you'd want to keep your powers' true nature a secret, so choosing a vague or unrelated cape name could help surprise your enemies. But the man wore a dragon-shaped mask, named himself "dragon" in Chinese, and had dragon tattoos all over his chest. I was starting to notice a pattern.

Right. Well then, what Hero was better suited to fighting a dragon than a dragonslayer?

I reached out with my power, and another time, a dozen or more Heroes might have offered themselves up for use. Each of them would have been a dragonslayer, each would have put down at least one dragon in his myth, and some might even have tamed them. But I had already chosen one, even before reaching out. I had already done the research to know that _this_ was the one I wanted.

"Set. Install."

Power, more power than Hassan and even more than the Witch I had Installed on Friday, rushed through me. My body suddenly grew four inches, stretching out at the arms and legs. My muscles thickened, bulging, not like a bodybuilder, but lean and tightly corded, like a professional athlete. I felt my face change shape as my mask disappeared, and in my peripheral vision, I saw my hair turn silver and become wild and shaggy.

The costume that came with my base Breaker state changed, as well. I was covered in a maroon-trimmed black bodysuit, open in the center to show off the glowing green marking that covered my torso (though there was a single strap holding it together to protect my modesty). My shoulders were covered in heavy steel pauldrons, my hands and forearms by wicked-looking gauntlets, my upper thighs by tassets, and my feet and calves by matching greaves and sabatons.

But the truly impressive thing was the massive piece of steel I now held in my right hand. It was a greatsword as long as I was tall with a grip as long as my forearm and a blade that looked like it could chop down a thick oak tree with one swipe. It was a sword so large that most men would have struggled to use it with both hands, and yet I held it easily with one.

Ordinarily, the sparse armor would have been dangerous. It left too many parts open, too many places vulnerable. Any idiot could kill a guy who left his chest so wide open, and even against ordinary gangers, one lucky shot would mean death.

But the Hero I'd Installed was Siegfried, the Dragon-Blooded Knight. I'd researched his legend — in it, he'd slain the dragon, Fafnir, and by bathing in its blood, his body had become like steel. With flesh more like dragon scales than skin, he was nearly invincible, almost impervious to harm, but for the mark on his back where a linden leaf had stuck as he soaked in the dragon's blood.

And the sword in my hand was the sword that had dealt the fatal blow to Fafnir. Anything that called itself a dragon would be weakened by every blow.

As Lung charged towards me, I raced to meet him, shattering chunks of asphalt as I kicked off the ground. When we closed, he swiped at me with one clawed hand, wreathed in flame, but Siegfried's instincts now filled my head, and my arm swung around, cleaving through his bicep with Balmung.

Lung's arm went flying off into the night, but to his credit, he didn't flinch or retreat, he only howled, grabbed my wrist with his other hand, and pinned it to my chest. His flames tried to sear away my skin and melt my gauntlet, and even before my eyes, more and more silver scales were starting to bubble up from beneath his flesh, and he swelled and grew another four inches.

"GAH 'OO!"

But his grip felt weak, fragile, and his flames were like a sunbeam on a clear summer day. The Lung before me was probably a mid-tier Brute already, capable of splattering my base Breaker state across the pavement like a rotten tomato, but as strong as he was, as formidable as other heroes might have found him, _I_ was stronger still.

"Do you?"

I wrenched my arm away in the other direction, throwing his to the side and opening up his chest, then I brought my other hand forward, balled into a fist, and planted it with about half my full strength right into his ribs. Each one of them popped and broke with a sickening crunch — I could almost _feel_ them, even through my gauntlet — forcing all the air out of his lungs as a gurgling wheeze, and the sheer power behind the blow sent him skidding several feet back.

Lung wasn't that easily beaten, however. He didn't fall or collapse, he just bent his head over — his mask had already been shifted away by the snout sprouting from his face — and heaved up a truly obscene amount of blood, which began to boil at his feet. The stump of his right elbow bubbled grotesquely; the arm I'd severed was starting to grow back, like the timelapse video I'd once seen of an injured starfish. The rest of him glimmered in the heat of his flames, shimmering silver scales reflecting the light like a tightly woven suit of mail, and because he had swelled to nearly nine feet of bulging muscles, the tattered remains of his pants fell from his body and caught alight.

"Muv'r…'ugger…" he gurgled out.

I was confident that it still wasn't enough. My sword hadn't seemed to stunt his growth or anything, no, but maybe that was because he wasn't enough of a dragon, yet. The closer and closer he got, I thought, the more and more he'd be affected by the special attribute of my sword. Once he reached the point where he looked like the real deal, wings, tail, and all — _if_ he could go that far, and I had no idea if he could — then I would have him. The wounds delivered by Balmung would heal slower, his growth would creep down to a crawl, and every hit would feel to him like a concentrated blast of _weakness_.

I leapt backwards another thirty feet, further away from the downed gangers. I had no intention of catching them in the crossfire, no matter how despicable they were, and I wasn't about to become a murderer, even on accident. This was between me and Lung, now, and we needed room.

Lung didn't seem to notice or care why I'd increased the distance, but if the crooked grin that worked its way across his twisted maw was any sign, he probably saw it as me retreating. I didn't care to correct him; it just made it easier to convince him to come my way if he thought I was trying to escape.

Fortunately, it seemed my guess was right. Lung charged in my direction as his arm finished reforming, eating up the space between us with great, loping strides. By now, his neck had elongated into something serpentine and inhuman, and his head was a mass of gleaming scales and crocodile teeth. The mask had been completely abandoned — it served no purpose anymore, because there was no way to match what I was seeing to a human being's face, not even with the best facial recognition software.

As he came upon me, he reached out with a long swipe of his regrown arm. The force of it transferred by his momentum alone would have snapped a man's head clean off, and I was sure I could have taken it completely unscathed, but it was too open, too telegraphed. Siegfried's instincts were almost impossible to ignore as I ducked and spun underneath it, bringing Balmung around and down to carve at horrific line right across his back. I was sure I had severed his spine, and his pained, angry howl told me exactly how much it hurt.

Even still, Lung only stumbled, one, two, five paces, and before his foot came down on the sixth, the line I'd carved was healed up. The scales that had been scattered by my slash were replaced in an instant, and before my eyes, he grew again, bulking outwards and shooting up nine more inches. Two bulges that I had first thought were his shoulder-blades wiggled and grew, and at the base of his spine, a third bulge began to lengthen and thin.

Wings and a tail, I realized. He really _was_ becoming a dragon.

I closed again, even as he started to turn, and lopped off the same arm I'd first severed. He loosed another howl and eyed me with inarticulate fury, and the flames turned bright, blazing yellow. Even the asphalt at our feet was beginning to melt — he had to be burning at eighteen or nineteen-hundred degrees Fahrenheit, at least.

He swung out at me with his other arm, again, but I just lopped that one off, too. I stepped in, angling Balmung for a stab — but Lung's severed arm had already regrown, much faster than before, and I saw it too late to move back. It slammed into my face, claws scratching towards my eyes, with the force of a speeding truck.

There was no way to describe exactly how it felt. It wasn't exactly a tickle, per se, but he still wasn't strong enough to do any damage, and his claws slid right along my skin like water over a wetsuit. Siegfried's impenetrable flesh couldn't be broken by something only capable of destroying a car; if Lung wanted to hurt me, he needed to hit me _much_ harder.

Admittedly, it would've been a much different case if I'd been using just about any other Hero. Heracles or Achilles wouldn't have felt the blow either, but they both had a similar impenetrable skin and were some of my top of the top tier Heroes, and so was Siegfried. Most of the rest of my roster would've felt that hit much more keenly, and if I'd tried to win this one with Hassan, that would've been game over, right there.

But this was the exact reason I'd chosen Siegfried. As a Hero whose skin _was_ his armor, he could take a tank shell in the face without flinching, and Lung would have to bring the equivalent of a ballistic missile to give me anything more than a scratch — unless, of course, he hit the vulnerable point on my back. Siegfried was just so good that the former was likely to happen long before the latter.

As Lung's claw cleared my face, I twisted with the blow, then I abandoned my stab and backhanded him across the maw with my free hand. I didn't bother to control myself, this time: Lung got the full, unfettered power of my strength, and I heard his jaw shatter like glass. He howled another time through broken teeth and shards of bone, and blood poured out of his lipless mouth where fragments had broken through the skin. The side of his face that had been hit by my fist was a mangled mass of meat only connected to the rest by strained strands of sinew, whatever cords of muscle had survived, and stray patches of skin that hadn't been ripped away.

It was really a horrific thing to witness, and if it weren't for the situation I was in, I probably would have been throwing up. Siegfried, however, was a calm presence in my head; I was borrowing his strength, his skills, and his experience, and he had seen much, much worse.

My momentum was already carrying me in that direction, so I went with the flow and thrust Balmung forward and into Lung's gut. The silver scales that must have given many an opponent so much trouble parted effortlessly, and the huge greatsword would have nearly bisected an ordinary-sized man, but Lung was so large that he made Balmung seem normal-sized. I doubted I'd hit anything that would have ever been instantly fatal, and even if I had, he regenerated so quickly that it wouldn't have made a difference.

Lung didn't wait for me to follow up. His massive, tree-like legs pumped and pushed him backwards; he slid off of Balmung with a spray of blood and scales and cracked the pavement as he landed ten feet back. Before my eyes, his wounds vanished again, although the stab through his belly took longer than the slash to his back had moments ago. I took that as a sign that he was almost there.

I charged forward, Balmung trailing behind me, and Lung reached out and swiped at me as I came upon him, bright yellow flames blazing in the wake of his arm. I ducked under it again, but it seemed he'd learned from last time, because he spun with his swing and his half-formed tail came around for my head. I straightened and took it on my ribs, heavier and harder than the last one that hit me, but still not enough to really hurt, then wrapped my free arm around it and pinned it against my body. With my other arm, I brought Balmung down and cut the tail off of his body.

Lung let out a roar that shook the nearby buildings. Even as I threw the severed tail away, he reached around and blasted me with more fire, but I just charged through it, letting Siegfried's impenetrable skin turn the inferno into a balmy, almost pleasant warmth.

But I'd underestimated him, it seemed, because as I came through the flames, sword poised to slice into his side, he grabbed my wrist again and heaved me up and off my feet. I didn't have even a moment to struggle — he pulled me up and tossed me back like a sack of potatoes, and I went flying, skidding and rolling on the ground until I came to a rest some thirty or forty feet away. Somehow, probably because of Siegfried's instincts and skills, I'd managed to keep hold of Balmung, but I wasn't hurt. It he'd gotten me by my ankle and slammed me back-first into the ground, I might've been in trouble, but that was my advantage: as long as no one knew I was using Siegfried and that I had all of his strengths _and_ his weaknesses, no one who fought me would think I was any more vulnerable on my back than I was any other part of my body.

I pulled myself back to my feet, taking a moment to move a stray strand of silver hair from my eyes, and when I looked back up and over at my enemy, I could see two great shapes spread wide like a large net amongst the flames. A new tail was already thrashing back and forth, and Lung stood, easily at least fifteen feet, powerful and dangerous and menacing, as the heat from his white-hot fire peeled the paint on every sign and building within twenty yards of him and boiled the asphalt beneath his clawed feet.

He was at the point, now, where most of the superheroes would probably have called it off and retreated. His fists were large, attached to arms like tree trunks, and could probably crumble a small house with one sweep of his arm, and his legs looked like they could crush minivans effortlessly. It wasn't hard to imagine the beast before me going toe to toe with the entire Brockton Bay Protectorate roster and coming away the victor, and even the E88 at their most fanatical would probably take one look at him and turn the other way. _This_ was a dragon, as his name had claimed.

I felt my lips pull into a grin.

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

 **As always, read, review, and enjoy.**

 **p a treon . com (slash) James_D_Fawkes**


	4. Overture 1-3

**Overture 1.3**

With my blood roaring in my ears, I rocketed towards Lung, letting loose every ounce of Siegfried's power. I could feel his other Noble Phantasms clamoring for attention, to be used — Balmung's true form, a cloak of invisibility, an eight-legged horse with an unstoppable charge — but I didn't need any of them with his pure, raw strength singing through my veins.

The heat was sweltering as I got close, like I'd stepped into a sauna, and sweat broke out in all of the usual places as I came within sword-range. A blast of fire washed over my cheek, a brief, stinging annoyance that couldn't even be called a first degree burn, as I swung around at his arm again — but he lifted both arms and crossed them over his chest, and Balmung bit deep into them, splattering more blood that boiled away before it even touched the ground, and stopped at the bone.

My heart jumped in my chest. I should have been frightened, terrified out of my mind that he was finally presenting a challenge, but all I could feel was _excitement_. Everything in me _screamed_ to keep going, to press further and further while there was still a fight to be had, while there was still an enemy that could get through my impenetrable skin.

Finally. An actual fight.

This was _great_. This was _amazing_. Finally, a worthy opponent, someone who could put me through my paces. Not a weakling, like those gangers who had gone down with a single, light tap from Hassan. Not a pathetic glass cannon that could dish out loads of damage, but folded like a house of cards after taking the first hit.

 _This_ was what I…what _Siegfried_ had been waiting for. The blast of flames that had singed my cheek was probably at a temperature approaching that of something like thermite plasma, and the body of the monster across from me was _finally_ durable enough not to be cut to ribbons with casual ease. This was actually a _fight_ , now, not a one-sided slaughter. My victory might still have been a forgone conclusion, but —

Wait.

That was right. I'd gotten so caught up in the _fight_ that I'd forgotten _why_ I was fighting in the first place.

"▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅!"

Lung let loose another titanic roar, a sound too monstrous to have come from a human throat, tearing apart his arms as he ripped them to the side to try and disarm me. I leapt back, though, one, two, three times, putting another thirty feet between us. A heavy bead of sweat curled down the side of my face.

Just now, what had I been thinking? I'd been enjoying the fight, reveling in the rush of a challenging enemy who could put me through my paces — but that wasn't right. I wasn't fighting Lung for the sake of fighting him, I was fighting him to stop him from going after those kids. I'd only let it drag on for so long because I figured he'd be more affected by my sword's unique attributes if he was more like a dragon.

I could have put him down sooner, though. With where he'd been at the start of the fight, when I first Installed Siegfried, I could've knocked him out with one well-placed punch or a broadside to the head with the flat of my sword. Instead, I'd let him get stronger, faster, better, more able to fight me — because that was what I wanted? Why did I…?

Right. Right. I'd gotten a little carried away, there. Probably the adrenaline. I'd never actually gotten into a _fight_ before, not one like this, and not since getting my powers. I'd just let things go to my head a little too much.

Yeah. Okay. Focus, Taylor.

Lung was already chasing after me, so I kicked off the ground and rocketed towards him like a freight train. He was fast, faster than something that size should be, but I was faster still, and as I passed him, ducking under the swipe of his claw and the fire that trailed behind it, I slammed my foot into the pavement with enough force to shatter it.

It did more damage than I wanted to, but it still brought me to a sudden stop quickly enough to twist around and slash at his back, again. Lung let out an angry roar, and I managed to carve away a large chunk of his right wing, sending glimmering silver scales scattering all over, but it was basically a flesh wound.

Maybe if he'd already been flying, but…

Take victory where you can, Taylor. Wasn't that something I'd learned from dealing with the trio?

Taking out his right wing wouldn't make the fight right now any easier, but it stopped him from getting into the air. If he'd tried to fly away, he might've escaped, and that wouldn't have been good, would it? I couldn't beat him if he ran away, but if he couldn't fly, he'd have to face me, because I outpaced him on foot.

Lung was incredibly agile for something so big, but even with his speed, he couldn't turn on a dime. By the time he was spinning around again, I was already dashing under his elbow and dragging the edge of Balmung through his side. Blood and scales poured out.

"▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅!"

His ugly maw split open, and he brought his other arm down to try and smash me against the pavement, but I wasn't letting him catch me another time; I was already gone, keeping close as I danced around to his other side. Balmung flashed as I swung it again, carving through his left flank and the muscles and tendons that connected at his elbow.

He didn't even bother to wait. His left arm flailed as he swept it around at me, flinging bits of molten asphalt from his claws. I caught his wrist with my free hand, holding tight, and with a vicious downward chop, I finished the work my previous slash had done and parted him from his left arm just above the elbow.

Immediately, I leapt backwards and away, but it wasn't quite enough to avoid the ball of fire Lung summoned to surround himself with in retaliation: my right sleeve caught fire, and the gauntlet had heated up to a dull red. I had to drop his severed arm to pat it out, but the damage had already been done — he'd managed to incinerate everything from about my elbow on down, leaving only the gauntlet and — somehow — the leather padding intact. The most surprising thing was the faint stinging in my forearm and the patch of slightly reddened skin where the fire must have been hottest.

A worthy challenge.

For some reason, I felt strangely pleased by that.

A long moment seemed to pass as the ball of fire continued to burn, but it was probably only a few seconds. When it vanished, the low _fwoom_ of the superheated air rushing upwards was almost enough to drown out the growl that rumbled across the distance as Lung tried to murder me with his eyes.

That wasn't where I was paying attention to, though. My attention turned to the stump of his left arm, which was still bleeding, if much more sluggishly than it had at first. It was healing, I was pretty sure it was still healing at an accelerated rate, but it was healing much slower than it had been even a few moments before. I looked towards his right side, where I'd cut him less than a minute ago, and found it was still dribbling blood. It hadn't healed up, either.

I felt a smile pull at my lips. I was right, then. Like this, he was a dragon, and so like this, he was more vulnerable to my sword than ever.

I gripped Balmung's hilt with both hands, then kicked off the ground and leapt into the sky. Lung tracked me with his head, massive neck coiling, and he seemed to know what I intended to do, because he lifted his remaining arm up to block —

"Ha!"

But my sword carved through his wrist like a hot knife, and Balmung continued on to bite deep into his torso, spilling blood and scales and all sorts of unmentionable things across the pavement. Lung howled something that might have been a startled exclamation, then he held his arm across the wound and jumped backwards. A gesture with the stump of his left arm called forth a wall of flames to block my way.

I'd injured him. Badly.

No dragon can resist this sword.

My brow furrowed.

Maybe _too_ badly. I didn't really have a good handle on the limitations of his healing or on how my sword impairing it might affect his survivability. I wasn't about to try beheading him, but if I _had_ tried it with a hero who wasn't a dragonslayer, would he have survived? If he did, what would grow back — his head from his body or his body from his head?

Not important. What mattered was that I'd gotten a very solid hit on him, solid enough to put him on the back foot and force him to create some space.

Solid enough to force him to retreat?

Maybe. Maybe it _was_ enough. If he was going to go running with his tail between his legs, should I let him? After all, the whole point of this fight was to distract him enough to keep him from killing those kids he'd been talking about. Now that he was sufficiently distracted, did it matter if he left? Was it okay to let him go and lick his wounds?

Fight. Slay the dragon.

No, I decided after a moment. No, it wasn't. I might have achieved my original goal, but wasn't it better to put him down for good? If I let him go now, he'd probably just come back again later and go kill those kids he'd been talking about before. He'd be able to continue terrorizing the docks and the city, and who could say I'd be in the area, next time?

Better to defeat him now, completely and decisively, and let him get put away like the criminal he was.

I stepped forward, and with a single swing of my sword — _woosh_ — the flames were extinguished and I could see Lung again. His elongated, lipless mouth pulled into a sneer, and the gleaming red eyes that stared out of his face glittered with hate and malice.

He'd grown again.

The beast gets ever stronger.

Not nearly as dramatically as before, but another few inches, at least. The wounds I'd given him were no longer bleeding, but they healed with a slowness that must have been agonizing. Compared to where he'd been only a few minutes ago, it was a snail's pace. Still faster and better than any human could ever hope for, but nowhere near as quickly as I might have thought, given the speed with which he'd regrown his arms before.

What were his limits? I couldn't remember where I'd heard it, but hadn't he fought Leviathan essentially by himself? Where was that power? Where was the strength that could give even an Endbringer pause?

I will defeat you at your best.

A part of me wanted to see it, wanted to see it so badly that I was almost willing to wait, to blunt my attacks just to push him to those heights. But I put that impulse in check. The Endbringers routinely _demolished_ cities, and when they left behind anything at all, it was often so badly damaged that the people might choose instead to abandon it rather than try to rebuild upon the ruins. A fight with something that could go toe to toe with one of _those_ would not end well for Brockton Bay, even _if_ I could come out on top.

Lung snarled and growled, and it was still something that could never have come from a human mouth, but it was nothing like his previous roars. Was he feeling cornered? I didn't know. But the idea that I could so terrify one of the most powerful, if not _the_ most powerful, parahuman in the Bay gave me a kind of vindictive satisfaction that I'd been denied with the Trio for nearly two years.

"Are you afraid, Lung?"

The red eyes flashed, and the growl that rumbled in his chest seemed to set the world itself aquiver. Paradoxically, I wanted to smile.

"Do you feel the bite of my sword?" the words tumbled out of my mouth before I could consider how strange they sounded, like they were coming from someone else. "This sword, which has slain dragons before? Do you feel the strength of this body, which has taken their power as spoils?"

Siegfried…was this Siegfried? Did he feel so strongly about this that I couldn't stop his thoughts from slipping out? The excitement that was coiling in my stomach, was it his?

"You will need to do much better than this to threaten me, Lung," said my mouth. "After all…a dragon will _always_ be defeated by a _dragonslayer_."

Lung's body rippled, and the wounds I'd delivered bubbled as the injured flesh was stitched shut by more scales — healing even faster, now, but held closed to let him fight until the damage was repaired completely. He opened his mouth, threw out his chest, and —

"▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅!"

The roar was followed by a gout of white-hot flame, shooting straight out of his gullet. I dodged to the side of it, felt the sizzling heat of its passing, and the moment my feet touched back on the ground, I was off again, dashing towards Lung.

But Lung was not willing to let me get in close, anymore. He twisted out of my direct path, and his tail lashed out like a whip for my legs, intent on tripping me or distracting me, it didn't matter which. I leapt over it as easily as playing jump-rope, but my momentum carried me another five, ten, fifteen, twenty feet, and as I tried to stomp down to turn around, the road beneath me stretched and bunched up like hot taffy.

I felt my lip curl in distaste. I'd landed in one of the spots that had been nearly melted by Lung's flames.

The road tried to cling to me as I leapt off of it, and I landed on the more solid concrete sidewalk. Lung, now more than thirty feet away, eyed me cautiously. I could see the hand I'd chopped off starting to regrow fingers, but they were little more than nubs on a vaguely ovular blob, and his left forearm was halfway through reforming.

I pursed my lips.

For all that taunting that had slipped out against my will, I actually didn't want to let him grow to his strongest form (even though it seemed that Siegfried _did_ ). As I'd thought before, I was fairly sure that Brockton Bay wouldn't survive the fallout, and, well, first of all, I lived here, and secondly, so did my dad.

Resolving to beat him now, however, didn't do me much good if he wouldn't let me get close enough to land a hit. Worse, Lung was actually starting to approach my strength and speed, even if he had yet to land anything like a decisive or even a serious blow on me. If I let him go too far, he could just wait me out until he was too strong for even _Siegfried_ to defeat, or else he could run away before I could stop him.

No more holding back. Avoid the head, avoid separating the head from the rest of the body, but even if I had to individually hack off each arm and leg, I was _going_ to put him down.

I rocketed towards him again, but instead of going in for a swipe and letting him interrupt me again, I threw Balmung with all of my strength. It flew like a buzzsaw, whooping as it cleaved through the air, and Lung had to dodge to the side to avoid having it bite into his flesh. By now, he had undoubtedly learned that it could stunt his healing and his growth.

But I'd never been aiming to actually hit him, just distract him. He dodged Balmung, yes — right into my path. The heat that he gave off was sweltering and approached unbearable, but Siegfried had fought in uncomfortable situations like that, so I kept my focus, pulled back my fist, and blasted him in the gut with a full force punch.

Lung let out what might have been a scream in a human, crumpling around my arm as ribs snapped and organs ruptured. Against another foe, that single blow would have been enough to declare a decisive victory.

Not Lung. As he had proven several times, he was much harder to put down than that.

So, I reared back my other fist, and as I pulled the first away, I slammed him with another punch, just as strong, right in the spot where I remembered carving him up, before. The sound Lung made now was even more agonized, but I didn't wait for him to recover or counterattack; as his arms came around to protect his injured torso, I grappled with one, grabbed it with both hands, then, with a twist and a motion that probably looked ridiculous from the outside, I flung the twenty-foot Lung over my shoulder and onto the ground.

The thud of Lung hitting the road was like an earthquake, and he had to weigh in excess of a thousand pounds, now, but I didn't wait, I didn't stop. I took one, two, three bounding steps and retrieved Balmung, then turned back around and made to deliver the finishing blow.

Aim for the heart, straight and true.

The thing about a dragon, however, is that they have far too many limbs to be in any way fair. Lung's tail came around again, whipcord fast, and slammed into my chest like a speeding car. Without Siegfried, my entire ribcage would probably have been reduced to a maraca, but all I felt was something akin to a light slap.

It would have — it _did_ — sent me flying, but I wasn't willing to give him that much space and time to regain his bearings. I gripped Balmung with both hands and thrust it into the road, digging in my heels; instead of soaring twenty or thirty feet, I slid about five or seven, and I had barely managed to stop before I was moving again.

Lung had grown another foot as I came back upon him, and the wing I had sliced off had been replaced. I paid it barely any mind as I took aim at his back, intent on staking him through the heart from behind.

But Lung spun around to meet me, and quick as lightning, one hand shot out to grab my sword hand, then another to grab my free hand, then as he lifted me up off of the ground, two more came up to grasp at my head.

What?

My mind boggled at the strangeness of it, and for a few seconds, I wasn't sure what to make of it. Four arms. He had four arms, now. Two arms, two legs, a tail, and a pair of wings, sure, but four arms? What the hell kind of dragon had four arms, anyway?

This kind, apparently.

"▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅▂▃▃▄▄▅▅▄▄▅▅!"

He tried to say something to me, likely a proclamation of his victory, but it came out as a garbled, inhuman noise. The hands around mine tightened, and the hands holding to my head began to heat up and glow. Out of the corners of my eyes, I saw an intense light, starting at a low orange and steadily climbing towards yellow. I could feel my skin begin to warm.

He was going to burn me. He was going to burn me up, just turn up the heat until my head ignited or exploded, whichever came first. No mercy. No live-to-fight-another-day nonsense. Just like that, he was going to kill me. No pomp, no circumstance, no bullshit about worthy opponents or last words or anything like that. Just…as casually as he had talked about killing those kids, he was going to kill _me_.

Worthier men have tried.

 _Like Hell_.

I let out a wordless scream, and with a feat of agility that would have made professional gymnasts green with envy, I swung my torso up, curled my knees against my stomach, and planted both of my feet in his chest with all of my strength.

 _Snap-snap-snap_ , went his ribs, barely healed from my previous punches. Lung gave what might generously be called a startled yelp and reflexively let me go to cradle his injury again as the force shoved him back several feet. I'd only just landed back on the ground before he'd uncurled himself and turned a blazing glare my way.

But I'd learned my lesson.

I leapt away, putting even more space between us, so that the distance was now something like fifty feet. I didn't need much, just enough to give myself some time. As long as he didn't interrupt me, this would be the finishing blow — for real, this time.

I gripped Balmung with both hands.

The thought I'd had before, that it was time to stop holding back, even then, I'd held back. There was a multitude of reasons I could have given why, but at the end of the day, I just didn't want to risk killing him. I didn't like the idea of becoming a murderer.

But I liked the idea of becoming a murder victim less. Especially on my first night out as a hero.

"O sword…"

Energy surged through my arms and into Balmung. An eerie orange light shone from the jewel in the hilt.

"Let thee be filled."

I lifted the sword above my head. Two seconds — that was how long it had taken me. Lung was already approaching, dashing with such speed and strength that he was eating up the ground and the world felt as though it was shaking. Against one of the Protectorate heroes, he probably would have been too fast to counter.

Not me.

 **Phantasmal Greatsword  
** "Bal —"

I swung down.

 **Felling of the Sky Demon**  
"— mung!"

A wave of twilight. A cresting wave of energy surged outward from the arc of my swing, traveling over the ground even faster than Lung. What pavement had not been broken and shattered throughout the rest of the fight was utterly destroyed by its passing, upheaved and rendered into dust.

An Anti-Dragon weapon. The feat which had been captured by the legend of Siegfried and Balmung was that of slaying a great dragon with a single blow. The wave of energy moving swiftly through the intervening space now was the embodiment of that attack, an attack which could defeat an entire host of five-hundred men and laid low anything that could call itself a dragon. If even Fafnir, who only Siegfried had been strong enough to defeat, had been killed by it….

Lung met the wave head on.

In the first place, there was nowhere for him to go, no way for him to avoid it. Even if he'd jumped, the wave was too high and covered too large an area. The best he could have done would have been to move to the outer edges, where the attack wasn't quite as potent.

But even Lung had to obey physics. Stopping and jumping straight up might have worked to dodge the brunt of it, but Lung had already been barreling forward like a freight train. He didn't have the time or the space to get even partly out of the way.

So he crashed into it head first.

At the last possible moment, I saw him shield his head and torso with every available limb, from his arms to his legs to his wings.

When the light faded and I had blinked the bright spots out of my vision, it took me a moment to find Lung again. Not only was there no longer a hulking beast of a dragon right in view, but most of the fires had either been swept out by my attack or were dwindling down to flickering embers. The street had, once more, been plunged into total darkness.

It took a minute for my eyes to adjust to the stars and the light of the quarter moon, now that there weren't any major sources of light to let me see by, but Siegfried seemed to have better night vision than a normal human, because once I _did_ adjust, I could see the street with much more clarity than I'd had before the fight. Then again, maybe Siegfried's vision was normal and the reason I'd had trouble in my base Breaker state was because my natural eyesight wasn't exactly 20/20.

Either way, it only took a moment or two of looking to find the great lump of flesh that sat further on down the road. I looked behind it, but even with Siegfried's better vision, I couldn't see the gangers we'd left behind at the beginning. Maybe they'd woken up and left…but I had a feeling the answer was actually that Lung and I had just gone so far away from them that they were too far to see in the moonlight.

I frown and cautiously made my way over to the lump on the road I'd spotted — was I just imagining things, or was it actually shrinking? Absentmindedly, I tried to keep track of the distance and found that Balmung had thrown Lung back about forty or fifty feet from where he'd collided with that wave of energy. I probably should have been more surprised that it didn't throw him further.

The lump _was_ Lung and it _was_ shrinking — scales sloughing off, excess skin falling away or just plain disappearing into _nowhere_ , and all of the draconic features turning back into something more like a human. His arms and legs were just plain _missing_ , like they had been neatly seared away by some incredibly hot flame. My attack had, indeed, defeated him in one blow. The only trouble was that I wasn't sure it hadn't _killed_ him, too.

In the end, I was terrible at going all out. I was too afraid that I'd become a murderer, and that wasn't a step I wanted to take — _especially_ on my first night out. I'd unleashed Balmung at something like half strength, maybe closer to two thirds. I didn't think Siegfried was entirely happy about that, but he _did_ know how to do it.

Even like that, I didn't know if the ultimate Anti-Dragon weapon had killed the dragon, Lung.

Hesitantly, I leaned down and pressed two fingers against the side of his throat, feeling for a pulse, and found nothing. It was only belatedly, after I had a brief, confused moment of mingled panic and satisfaction, that I realized I wouldn't be able to feel it through the metal of my gauntlets and the leather padding on their insides.

I needn't have bothered, anyway. Even if I missed the rise and fall of his chest, his injuries were already starting to heal — much, much slower than they had at even the beginning of the fight, but still noticeable. He'd probably have his arms and legs back within an hour, three at the long end.

I took a step back and considered what I should do, and for a moment, I kind of floundered. I'd beaten Lung. I'd knocked several members of his gang unconscious before that. I'd achieved the goal I'd originally had when this whole thing started, and then I'd gone and overachieved it by beating Lung outright, rather than just stopping him from killing those kids. The only question was, now what?

Well, obviously, I needed to get the authorities out here — the Protectorate, the PRT — so that they could arrest this guy. Could they take the gangers, too? Even if they didn't have jurisdiction or whatever, they could probably hold onto them until they could hand them over to the BBPD. Either way, I needed to contact the authorities. The only problem with that was that I didn't have a phone —

I heard the roar of the motorcycle almost at the last second, and as I spun around to look, I caught a flash of something flying past me and hitting Lung. It was too big to be a bullet, but I had to stop myself from glancing back to check and make sure Lung was still alive. In front of me, a technical marvel of mechanical engineering pulled to a halt, and from its back, a single, tall man dismounted with a smooth, practiced motion that looked almost like he'd been thrown from his ride.

I almost didn't recognize him in the dark. The light on his bike helped illuminate him, but it also threw off my night vision, at first, so my natural reaction was to tighten my grip on my sword and prepare to face whoever had come — the E88, looking to take advantage of Lung's weakness and finish what I'd started? The Merchants, trying to seize a chance to muscles the ABB out by removing their leader? I had no idea.

But my vision sharpened quickly, quickly enough to catch a glimpse of blue armor, highlighted with silver accents, a visored helmet that left his lower face open to show off his neatly trimmed beard, and most importantly, the hi-tech halberd he hefted and pointed in my direction — a halberd I knew, just from looking at it, probably had more crazy functions and sci-fi gizmos than I could even begin to imagine.

Armsmaster, the premiere hero of Brockton Bay, considered one of the Protectorate's shining stars, leveled a scowl my way with tension — the kind that Siegfried recognized as being prepared to fight — writ into every fiber of his body.

"You gonna fight me?"

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

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	5. Overture 1-4

**Overture 1.4**

Armsmaster leveled his halberd at me, tension and readiness to fight evident in every inch of his body.

"You gonna fight me?"

Against you…

"It wouldn't even be an actual fight."

The words slipped out of my mouth before I'd even realized what I was saying, and as they registered with my actual brain, Armsmaster across from me was already preparing to do battle. Nonono, that wasn't what I wanted _at all_.

 _Damn it, Siegfried! Damn it, damn it, damn it!_

As though it were poison, I dropped immediately out of my Install and back into my base Breaker form.

"Oh my god," I said, horrified. "I'm sorry, that wasn't even me — Siegfried was the one who — it just kind of slipped out before I could — I didn't even — oh…"

Exhaustion suddenly hit me like a brick to the face, and as my head throbbed and my muscles ached, my knees shook and gave out from under me. It was like all of the strength in my body had fled with my Install, as though the only thing propping me up had been Siegfried, and the moment I had discarded him, he'd taken all of my energy with him.

Right then, right there, in front of a hero whose emblem had been printed on a pair of underwear I'd once owned, I collapsed. I thought for sure it would be right to the ground — great, not only had I insulted a hero, I'd fainted in front of him, too.

Except a pair of surprisingly gentle arms caught me, and I found myself with my face pressed against the cool, metal chestplate of Armsmaster's power armor. His hands were incredibly steady — he probably had some sort of gadget or something in his gauntlets to help with that — and it was only with his help that I managed to stay standing.

"You okay?" he asked a little gruffly.

"Sorry," I mumbled again. I refused to look up into his face — I could feel my cheeks burning, and I thought then that that would be one of the advantages to a full face mask: no one could ever see when you were embarrassed.

"D'you need to sit down?"

I shook my head.

"No," I said, rather weakly. I cleared my throat and tried again. "No, I'm…I'm fine."

Then, to prove it, I pushed myself back up to my feet so that I wasn't half-lying on his chest and put my weight back onto my legs. After a moment or two of wobbling and shakiness, I managed to regain enough strength to stand without his assistance. Armsmaster, proving that he was a hero for a reason, let his hands linger for a few moments longer, as though he was waiting to catch me if I fell again, before they dropped back down to his sides.

I cleared my throat again. "So."

"Right," he grunted, but he didn't ask if I was going to fight him, again. The only guess I had was that my bumbling apology had convinced him that I was a hero — thank goodness for small mercies.

He looked me up and down, as though inspecting my costume, and for one wild moment, I thought he was looking for stray hairs or pulled stitches or something equally inane and stupid. Then, I realized he was probably checking me for injuries and making judgements about how good I was or what my powers might be based upon my costume.

Finally, he said, "You're new."

"First night out," I admitted, and I immediately regretted it. _Gosh, Taylor, why don't you tell him your three sizes, too?_ It couldn't have been any more embarrassing than what I'd already said. "I mean, um…yeah."

Armsmaster gave a grim nod. "You got a name?"

"I…thought of several, actually." They'd all been in that notebook Emma and her cronies had ruined. "I think, though, I'm gonna go with Apocrypha."

He tilted his head a little.

"Apocrypha?"

"Because…legends are hard to prove or disprove, and some myths might have actual basis in real life people and events?"

 _Yes, of course, regurgitate some of the stuff you've read online, like you actually know what you're talking about._

"I guess that has something to do with your power?" he asked.

"Well, I mean, isn't that…kind of personal?"

Very few capes I'd read about on PHO had come out and described what their powers were. Presumably, it was because it kept their enemies guessing, but it might just be because most of them (especially the heroes) had very obvious powers. Was it rude to ask? I didn't know.

Armsmaster grunted and shook his head. "It's fine. Apocrypha it is, then."

He looked behind me and nodded in Lung's direction. "I suppose that's your doing?"

"Yeah," I said. "I, uh, overheard him telling some of his goons — uh, they're back down the street, somewhere, we, uh, kinda moved away from them as we fought — to kill some kids and I decided I couldn't let him do that, so…"

I trailed off lamely, unable to think of any spectacular or intelligent way to describe what had come next, aside from the obvious, "we fought," which probably wasn't very helpful.

It seemed like enough for Armsmaster.

"So, you fought him," he said, something like a scowl pulling at his lips, "on even ground?"

I couldn't stop myself from snorting.

"Maybe in the last few minutes of it, yeah," I said with a bit of pride. "But before that, the only reason he didn't go down was because I wasn't willing to kill him and everything else I hit him with wasn't enough to put him out."

Armsmaster grunted again and gave a pointed look at the limbless Lung lying on the ground. "You certainly seem to have gotten over that concern."

It sounded almost like an admonishment, and to be entirely honest, it felt like one.

"I held back as much as I could," I said, a little defensively. "Even then, whether it would kill him or whether he'd just get back up and keep going was something I wasn't a hundred percent sure of. He certainly proved willing enough to kill me, though. Tried to fry my head off of my shoulders."

Armsmaster gave my head a look, as though checking it for signs of burns. There weren't any, of course. Lung hadn't actually managed to do anything with his attempt at cooking my brain inside my skull, but if he'd gotten to a high enough temperature, it would've been an entirely different story.

Once he'd inspected me, Armsmaster turned his gaze outward and swept it around the street.

"How far along was he?" he asked, moving on. "What did he look like?"

"Twenty feet tall or so," I answered. "Wings. Tail. Snout. Elongated neck. He even had a second set of arms. He caught me by surprise with those."

Armsmaster stilled and turned back to look at me.

"That far?" I heard him mumble, disbelieving.

I took a little bit of pride in that, too. Hadn't I thought that the Lung I was facing was probably so strong that entire teams of heroes would have fled rather than face him? To hear Armsmaster's disbelief only validated that.

After a moment, he seemed to gather himself and scowled, looking around at the street.

"I'm guessing most of this was his doing, then?"

I paused and turned around to look at what he was talking about.

Destruction.

That was the only word to describe it. The entire road had been destroyed, ruined beyond repair. The paint was chipped, dried, and outright peeling on some of the buildings — which had already been in disrepair when I'd gotten here, made even worse, now — the road that had been in the path of my sword's attack had been torn up and scattered, leaving a finely ground dust and chunks of asphalt that hadn't been completely disintegrated. The street beyond that looked twisted and soupy, melted — from Lung's fire, no doubt.

There were also windows that had been shattered, though, probably from when I'd dashed past them at full speed. Chunks of road had been torn up from my running and kicking off of the ground, leaving great craters that were too deep and too wide for any car to drive across. There were even street signs that had been warped by the heat and curled now towards the ground.

It looked, all in all, like a warzone. The only reason it didn't look worse was probably because I'd tried my best to keep the fight limited to that one street, so that we weren't dashing through the Docks and smashing up buildings as we fought.

I did this, though. There was no escaping that thought. I couldn't even begin to imagine exactly how much repairs would cost, if they were even done and this street wasn't just given up as a lost cause, but I knew it would be expensive. More than my dad's yearly salary, at least. Maybe more than what my dad made in _five_ years.

And I'd done it. Oh sure, Lung was responsible, too, and the lion's share probably went to him, but looking at it, I knew I'd done some of it, too. In fact, most of the stuff I'd done was probably only unnoticeable because Lung had simply destroyed whatever I'd already damaged.

There was even a few buildings that had collapsed, somewhere along the line. Lung hadn't done _that_. In fact, they looked more like they'd been blown over by a sudden wind or chopped in half by a giant —

Oh.

So, when I swung Balmung with nothing held back…

I suddenly felt nauseous. What if there'd been _people_ in there? What if this had happened _downtown_ , where there _would_ have been people in these buildings? I would have killed them like that, wouldn't I? Entirely without meaning to, I would have —

I swallowed thickly.

"Yeah," I said a little faintly. "Yeah, Lung did most of that. He was flinging fire everywhere, when he wasn't melting stuff just by standing there."

I hoped he wouldn't ask, that he wouldn't request clarification, but Armsmaster was too smart and too experienced for that.

"Most of it?"

"I, uh…" I swallowed again and thought about lying, but that probably wouldn't solve anything. "This was my first time using my powers in a fight. I did some tests earlier, but I guess I never realized…"

 _Just how powerful_ are _my Heroes, anyway?_

"That's why I collapsed, too," I admitted. "I've never… _pushed_ myself that hard that fast. I…didn't know it would take that much out of me."

Did Armsmaster have some kind of "truth" aura? Why was I telling him all of these things?

"That's what the Wards program is for," Armsmaster said. "Help you figure out your powers, help you find out where your limits are, help you out when you're in trouble…"

He stopped halfway and stared intensely at me for a moment, then seemed to have an epiphany and abruptly changed tacks.

"But you don't need that, do you?" he said. "You fought Lung to a standstill up to a point where any other hero, even entire _teams_ , would have turned tail and retreated — to the point where even the _Protectorate_ gave it up as a lost cause."

He glanced back down the road for a moment, then asked, "How many limbs did you chop off when you were fighting him?"

"I…don't know?" I said, caught off guard. It felt like this should be a trick question, but the way he'd said it sounded like an honest curiosity, or like maybe he was driving towards a point. "His right arm, his left arm, a wing, his tail…I think I got almost everything but his head at least once."

"And you fought him like that while keeping the fight contained to a _single street_ ," Armsmaster said emphatically. " _You_ don't need help, no, but _we_ do. Aegis, Vista, the Wards, even Miss Militia and myself — we do the best we can with what and who we have, but sometimes that's not enough. Sometimes, we have trouble or we're spread far too thin. Even with the PRT as backup, there are things we can't do or places we can't always be. People we can't always save."

In my head, I could see the image coming together: a beleaguered Protectorate fighting a long battle against Lung, with the Wards there in the background as support. PRT troopers would be trying to put him down, only for everything to glance right off of Lung's scales like it was nothing. They were losing, and losing badly.

Then, I was there, as Medea or Lancelot or Siegfried. I'd cast spells that slowed him down or made my allies stronger, healing their wounds, or else I'd charge through to the front, shrugging off everything Lung threw at me and forcing him back. The troopers behind me would cheer, and the Wards and the Protectorate would rally in my wake, taking advantage of the openings I made with my sword.

It was a tempting image, to be needed like that, to be able to help people like that. I'd given it a little bit of thought, before. Not much. If I had to try and say why I wasn't excited about the idea, I might have said that I was afraid of fitting in, of whether or not I could be a part of the Wards without being too _big_ for them. I didn't want to…to make them look bad, just because I'd hit the power jackpot. I didn't want to outshine them.

I didn't want to be anything like Emma.

And a part of me, I think, was afraid that the Wards might hate me for it, if I was just so much more powerful than they were. And being part of a Wards team that didn't want anything to do with me…I couldn't help but think I'd be miserable, like that.

But the way Armsmaster put it, like they'd be happy to have me on board, and I could do _so much good_ …

"I…" For a moment, I thought about saying yes immediately, but something, some uncertainty, held me back. "Can I think about it for a few days?"

Armsmaster gave me a smile, a very warm, very human smile, and nodded. "Of course," he said. "This isn't a decision anyone should rush into. Take a few days or a week or two, talk to your parents about it, and if you have any questions…"

He produced a business card from somewhere in his armor and held it out. It had his logo, his official Protectorate email, and a phone number printed neatly on a thick, sturdy cardstock.

"Feel free to give me a call."

I took the card without a single moment's hesitation. "I'll do that," I promised.

He nodded again. "If you'll excuse me a moment, I need to call this in."

"Okay."

He stepped away and lifted a hand to his helmet, and I heard him say, "Console," before he turned around and his words became inaudible.

Me, I just stood there, unsure of what to do or where to go. I'd beaten Lung. Armsmaster had invited me to join the Wards. What next? Should I just…go home, after all of that?

It felt weird, like something this big and this life-changing should mean…I had no idea what, but the thought of going home after that seemed strange and alien. Maybe not trumpets and fanfare, but it felt like there should still be something…more, some indescribable thing that should happen, now that I'd finally gone out and become a hero — and taken down _Lung_ , of all villains, in the process.

But…no. There was nothing special happening. I was just standing there, feeling vaguely cold and wondering why _I_ had changed, but the world seemed hell bent on staying the same.

"Apocrypha."

I blinked and turned back to Armsmaster. "Yes?"

"PRT transport for Lung will be here in a few minutes," he said. "If you'd like, you could stay and watch. Get firsthand experience with our procedures and see them in action."

Sort of like the PRT version of a police ride-along?

"Uh," I stuttered, "sure."

That…actually sounded like an invaluable experience, and if I did eventually decide to join the Wards, well, it'd be pretty useful then, wouldn't it?

He gave me another nod, then we fell into silence as he headed back over to his bike and moved it to the side — to make room for the PRT vans, if I had to make a guess. He set it up so that the headlight shone directly on Lung, probably to make the troopers' jobs easier when they showed up, and it gave me a much better look at the burned-out stumps of Lungs arms and legs.

I really _had_ come pretty close to killing him, hadn't I?

It felt like an hour passed, but a few minutes later, flashing green and white lights came down the street almost silently — no sirens. I guessed that since they weren't responding to an emergency and it had to be one or two o'clock in the morning, there was no need to blare them and wake up everyone in a five mile radius.

The large vans that pulled up were white with purple stripes stretching diagonally down the sides. "PRT" was stenciled in big, blocky letters overtop. It was simple and relatively nondescript; but for the lettering and the color of the lights, it could have been just about any other emergency service vehicle.

The moment they came to a halt, the back of one burst open and a squad of men in what looked like military uniforms hopped out, jogging around the side of the van. They lifted the nozzle of some strange device, connected by a hose to a container strapped to each of their backs, leveled it at Lung, and started shooting some bizarre, greyish goop at him.

"Standard operating procedure for capturing villains," Armsmaster explained from beside me. "If they're down and in no need of immediate medical attention or if they haven't already been contained, then they're sprayed with containment foam, which expands and hardens. Durable, resistant to impacts, fire retardant, and porous enough that targets can still breathe. It's the standard nonlethal response."

A few moments later, after Lung had been completely covered and the goop had begun to harden, a trooper, decked out in body armor and complete with a visor that hid his face, came over and saluted Armsmaster.

"Sir," the trooper said, "prisoner secure and ready for transport."

"Good work," Armsmaster said. "I've loaded him with a sedative that should keep him out for a few hours, yet, but for any more details regarding his condition, you'll have to ask Apocrypha, here."

He turned to me expectantly, and after a second to stare at Armsmaster, the PRT trooper did, too.

"Ah." I fumbled for a moment, feeling like a deer caught in the headlights as I was suddenly put on the spot, but something else kindled inside of me — a bit of satisfaction and some pride, that Armsmaster had acknowledged me. "I mean, that is… I hit him with…I guess you could call it an anti-dragon attack. Since he's not a dragon anymore, he should…recover like normal."

The trooper nodded. "Ma'am," he said, "I'll take that under advisement." Then, after a moment's pause, he added, "And congratulations, Ma'am, for bringing down Lung."

He snapped off another salute to Armsmaster, "Sir!" and turned away to help load Lung into the van he'd come from.

"Armsmaster."

My head swiveled around to the newcomer, a woman in fatigues with an American flag scarf draped over her lower face, as she came towards the man standing next to me.

"Miss Militia." Armsmaster acknowledged her with a nod.

"Quite a catch you made tonight," she said, and from the way her eyes crinkled, she must have been smiling. She glanced past us to the place where Lung was, or where he'd been before he'd been showered with…containment foam, Armsmaster had called it. "The knight in shining armor rode in on his valiant steed and slew the big, bad dragon. Without taking a scratch, at that."

She rapped his chest plate with her knuckles, producing a slight, metallic _clink_.

"I can only take credit for the sedative that's keeping him out," Armsmaster told her. He gestured to me, again, making a slight bow. "Sir Knight is to my right."

"Oh?" Miss Militia looked at me, scanning my costume up and down. She laughed. "My apologies, then — _Lady_ Knight. Unless you have something else you'd rather I call you by?"

"I, ah…"

Damn it, Taylor… You would think I'd gotten used to being introduced to all these new people in one night.

"It's her first night out." Armsmaster saved me.

Miss Militia turned surprised eyes his way. "And she's already beaten Lung?" She offered me a friendly smile. "Quite the feather in your cap."

"I, ah, yeah. Um." I forced myself to focus. No more stuttering. I might be working with this woman in the future, so nervousness and hero worship would just get in the way. "I mean, yes, I beat Lung. Not for the glory of it, though."

Armsmaster grunted and folded his arms. "She said that Lung was talking about killing kids," he said by way of explanation. "Not that I'm entirely surprised, given what the ABB gets up to."

"Oh?" said Miss Militia, and she favored me with another smile. "A knight in shining armor, indeed. Might Milady Knight grace me with her name?"

If only she knew. She'd probably get a good laugh out of it when Armsmaster told her how he'd found me, still using Siegfried, armor and all.

"Apocrypha," I said firmly. I'd have to live with that name, now. Own it. All of the other names I was thinking of were no longer important.

"You certainly are a bit mysterious," said Miss Militia. "Apocrypha. Not a bad name. Have you thought about joining the Wards?"

"I, ah, wanted to think about it…"

"I see." She nodded. "Armsmaster has already made the pitch, then. Sorry — I didn't mean to push."

"It's fine."

"If you don't mind my asking, though," she said, "is there any particular reason you _wouldn't_ want to join the Wards? Any…concerns you had?"

"I…"

For a moment, I thought about just not saying anything and asking her not to pry. The more I considered it, though, the more I had to admit that no one else could answer a question if I didn't ask it. No one could tell me whether or not my concerns were well-founded if I didn't voice them.

That had been my relationship with Dad basically since Mom died. Sure, mostly I just didn't want to put more pressure on him, especially because I didn't think he could solve any of my problems at Winslow when my enemy was my former best friend, her cronies, and her lawyer of a father. That didn't change the fact that I hadn't told him anything about the bullying, nor even that it was still going on, even after the locker.

But I didn't want things to be like that in my superhero life, too. I didn't want every part of my life to consist solely of grinning, bearing it, and muddling through.

"I…guess I'm worried about fitting in," I said, echoing my earlier thoughts.

"Fitting in?" Miss Militia asked.

"My power," I clarified, "is, well, uh, Triumvirate tier. Which sounds really arrogant, I know —"

"You defeated Lung by yourself," she reminded me, not unkindly. "I don't think that's an unfair comparison to make."

"Right." I shifted a little nervously. "Yeah, um, well. My power is, uh, I guess you could say I draw strength from myths and legends —"

"Hence, 'Apocrypha,'" Armsmaster chimed in.

"Right, yeah." I nodded. "So, uh, I take on the powers of heroes from mythology — any of them, really. Heracles, Medusa, Achilles, Sigurd or Siegfried, the Knights of the Round Table… I, uh, haven't…actually found a limitation, yet? Every hero I've come across has been an option, for me. Celtic, Greco-Roman, Slavic — I even have a few Japanese heroes I've come across that count, too."

"That's what you meant by an anti-dragon weapon," said Armsmaster. "And that form you were in when I pulled up — one of those heroes?"

"Siegfried, actually," I clarified. "I had other options, like Saint George, but when it comes to his other advantages, Siegfried was just the better option."

Miss Militia suddenly broke out into laughter, and Armsmaster and I both turned to stare at her. "Sorry," she said when she noticed us looking, "it's just…a _literal_ knight in shining armor."

Armsmaster snorted, and even I had to smile a little bit. Like I'd thought before — she certainly seemed to enjoy the irony.

"So," she started once the laughter had died down. "You can take on the powers and abilities of any hero from mythology, regardless of origin or culture. Yes, that certainly sounds like quite the power; calling it Triumvirate tier isn't really a stretch."

She tilted her head to the side a little. "Why does that make you worry about fitting in?"

"I guess…I was afraid they'd be jealous?" I fidgeted a little. "I mean, a power like mine is hard to compete with. The only cape I know of that I can compare to is, well…"

"Eidolon," she finished for me.

"Yeah. I just thought, well, it'd be pretty intimidating. If they were afraid of me or jealous of me or whatever and didn't want to work with me, well, there just…wouldn't be much point to joining, would there?"

"It's certainly a valid concern," Miss Militia said. "I don't think any of our Wards would react like that, though. In fact, I think they'd be quite glad to have you."

She glanced back towards the PRT vans, which had already finished loading Lung. I could see one of the troopers making gestures at her and Armsmaster, like he was trying to tell them something but didn't want to interrupt us.

"It seems it's time for us to head back," she said.

Surprised, I asked, "That's it? That's all there is to it?"

Miss Militia sent me a questioning look, but Armsmaster chuckled.

"This is the easy part," he said. "Now that he's captured, we have to do the paperwork and process him through the system."

"Ah, yes," said Miss Militia dryly, "the more tedious side of crime-fighting: dotting your t's and crossing your i's. The enemy that gives trouble to even the strongest, most seasoned of heroes: paperwork."

"Mouse Protector's greatest nemesis," Armsmaster added, smiling sardonically.

Miss Militia gave a quiet little laugh, then shook her head and turned back to me. "You could ride back with us, if you wanted, and continue our conversation," she offered. "We're not allowed to show you some things, like where the cells are located or what our security measures are, but we could show you how we sign him in, and if one or two of the Wards are still in, we could arrange a meet-and-greet for you."

"I…"

It was tempting. Very, very tempting. I'd probably make up my mind right then and there, if I got to meet the Wards. It'd probably make or break my decision. If I could meet the Wards, if they really were as nice as Armsmaster and Miss Militia had implied, if I had the chance to meet some of the people who were in a similar position to me — if with not nearly as much power to throw around — then…

"I can't," I said regretfully, shaking my head. "I'm still kind of tired from fighting Lung, and I really should be getting home, soon. Plus, it's a school night…"

"Ah, the bane of teenage superheroes everywhere," Miss Militia said sagely. "School." She offered me another smile. "It's no trouble, Apocrypha, we understand. Have a good night. And remember: you did a very good thing, tonight."

"Good night," I replied automatically.

She gave a nod to her colleague, a quiet, "Armsmaster," and then turned around and climbed back into the second PRT van. A moment later, both had pulled away, and it was just me and him left on the street.

"I'll be heading back, as well," he told me. "Will you be all right, making it home by yourself?"

A surge of affection and gratitude swept through me, and I wanted to smile so badly that my cheeks hurt. He really was a hero, wasn't he?

"I'm gonna sit down for a few minutes, get my energy back," I said. "I'll head home after that. Shouldn't run into any trouble."

He frowned. "If you're sure…"

I gave him a smile. "I'm a little more durable than I look. Promise."

He still didn't look entirely happy about that, but I guess being told that the girl who took down Lung could take care of herself made some kind of sense to him, because he gave me a nod, went back to his bike, and after giving it a rev to warm the engine back up, he took off after the PRT vans. Alone in the dark, for the first time since the whole ordeal began, I sat down on the sidewalk and let out a sigh.

It still felt kind of surreal. I'd beaten _Lung_. _Lung_ , the biggest, baddest monster in the Bay, so terrifyingly powerful that entire Protectorate _teams_ were forced to retreat rather than take him on at his best, and I —

"Is he gone?"

The voice stopped me cold and I froze.

The girl, and with a voice like that, it could only be a girl, let out an exhausted sigh, and as I slowly turned my head to look into the alleyway behind me, a slender figure in purple spandex walked out of it.

"Ah geez," the girl said, combing her fingers through her blonde hair, "I swear, I was holding my breath the entire time!"

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

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 **p a treon . com (slash) James_D_Fawkes**


	6. Overture 1-5

**Overture 1.5**

For a long moment, I could do nothing but sit there, frozen. The girl in black and purple spandex stepped closer, a Cheshire grin pulling her mouth upwards and her eyes glittering in the dark — green or blue; I couldn't tell in the poor lighting. She had the sort of lean figure that told me she took care of herself, but whether that included some kind of martial arts or strength training, or even more intimidating, a Brute power, it was impossible for me to see. As skintight as her costume was, it wasn't quite formfitting _enough_ to give away muscle tone, or if it was, again, the lighting was too poor to tell.

Then, the moment passed, and I tensed and prepared to fight her. As tired as I was, I could at least pull out Medea and use spatial transportation to escape, as long as I could put enough distance between this girl and me.

But the girl only laughed and raised her hands in the universal sign of surrender.

"Hey, hey, calm down," she said. "I'm not here to fight!"

She stepped onto the sidewalk next to me, then plopped down with a sigh. I didn't relax, and when she glanced at me, she sighed again, frowned, and muttered, "Oh, for goodness' sake."

She slung an arm over my shoulders, pulled me close, and even as I tensed up more, she planted a swift peck on the exposed part of my cheek.

I felt myself flush, and almost without realizing it, all of the tension drained straight out of me.

"Uh-bwah?"

"Consider that a down payment," she said, grinning, "as a thank you for saving our butts, tonight."

"I…what?"

It took a moment for what she said to make it through my head. In hindsight, that kiss was probably designed to do exactly what it did: make me drop my guard and throw me off balance.

"You saved our butts," she repeated. "Me, Grue, Regent, Bitch — or Hellhound, if you want to keep things PG — if you hadn't been here, Lung would've turned us all into cinders."

"You're…"

Something clicked into place in my brain. She said that I'd saved her and three others — her friends? Her teammates? I had no idea — from Lung, who was going to…

"You're one of the kids he was talking about," I said slowly. "The ones he wanted to…kill?"

"Yep, that's right!" the girl smiled. "Name's Tattletale, and you saved my butt from becoming a smear on the pavement — seriously, thanks for that."

She offered her hand, but I didn't take it. After a moment, she let her hand drop, but didn't really seem disappointed. Like maybe she'd expected that I wouldn't take it. I still wasn't quite sure what to make of her.

"Anyway," said Tattletale, "we spent most of the day arguing our plan, once we heard he was after us. Got pretty heated, at times. Eventually, we decided, screw it, we'll meet him head on. Wasn't sure how that one was gonna go, but it wasn't like we had many more options. Better than letting him burn down the Docks looking for us."

"You…were gonna fight him?" I asked. "I didn't…"

 _I didn't see you_ , I didn't say. It sounded like I was accusing her.

"We ran into Oni Lee, first," Tattletale explained, unbothered. "Scary guy, but there's a reason he's not in charge of the ABB. We went back and forth for a little bit, then he got spooked and skedaddled when Lung and the rest didn't show. And by the time we got here to fight Lung, well…"

She gestured down the street, at the damage Lung and I had caused in our fight.

"You seemed like you had the fight well in hand, and Lung was burning _way_ too hot for our tastes. I like my skin and my costume separate, if you know what I mean."

I grimaced and rubbed at my arm where Lung had burned me. Luck, it seemed, was on my side, because the injury didn't carry over — or, given Siegfried's ridiculous constitution, it might just have healed before I dropped out of it. Either way, I _did_ know what she meant.

"So…where's the rest of your team, then?"

Tattletale shrugged. "They didn't want to stick around. Me, I figured the least I could do was say hi to the latest hero on the streets, especially since she pulled our collective butts out of the fire — almost literally, in this case."

"Ah…you're welcome?"

What did you even say to that sort of thing?

"So…what did you even do to get him so angry at you? To the point that he was coming after you himself?"

Tattletale hummed. "Ever heard of the Ruby Dreams?"

I shook my head a little. "No," I said.

"It's a casino," she told me. I had a feeling I was starting to see where this was going. "Owned by Lung and the ABB. It's a front for his gang, where they do stuff like sell drugs or launder their money. Big part of their enterprise. Not vital, but big enough to hurt, and well within ABB territory."

"And you…what? Busted it up?"

Tattletale laughed. "We _robbed_ it," she corrected. "Went in there, took whatever wasn't nailed down, then left. In, out, no one really got hurt, except Lung's finances. Showed everyone that it was an ABB front, too."

"You _robbed_ it?" I asked incredulously. "What, like a _villain_?"

Tattletale just shook her head. "How do you think independent heroes make any money? If you're not part of the Protectorate, you don't have tons of donations coming in like New Wave, or you're not selling, I dunno, costumes or something on the side, the only way to get anything is to take it from the villains. It's not like they earned it all legally."

"Sorry," I mumbled.

And it wasn't like the idea that "hero" and "villain" weren't clean, clear-cut lines was a new one, either. One of the things I had discovered in my research was that a lot of heroes and a lot of villains depended entirely on context and culture. Someone like King Arthur would've been a hero to the defending Celts, but a vile villain to the invading Saxons or the fading Roman Empire. Too, some villains had become villains after being abandoned by everyone and everything they might have counted on — like Medusa and Medea, both victims who had been left behind by those who should have rescued them.

Considering what things were like at Winslow, it wasn't all that hard to empathize with them.

"It's fine." Tattletale waved it off. "I think most of the populace probably doesn't understand what it really means to be an independent hero, or that some villains only get the label because something really screwed up happened to them in a really public place. Sometimes, the line between one or the other is separated by how good you are at PR."

It sounded…dark, cynical. Hero and villain were sometimes a matter of perspective and who was telling the story, yes, and I had a unique insight on how true that could be, but all the same, I couldn't help but wonder…

"Is it really that bad?" I asked.

Tattletale glanced at me, pursed her lips, and for a moment, didn't answer. Maybe she was weighing the pros and cons. Maybe it was just that uncomfortable a subject.

"Do you know what a Trigger Event is?" she said at length.

"I…vaguely remember reading something about it."

One of the first things I'd done once I realized I had powers was to go and look them up on Parahumans Online — PHO — to see what I could find out. I'd learned a lot of very helpful things, particularly on the FAQ thread that had the PRT's power classification system, but one of the things most parahumans refused to talk about was how they got their powers. There were vague mentions of "Trigger Events" in relation to them, but no one had really been clear about what one was or how they worked.

"It's your One Bad Day," said Tattletale. "Sometimes, it's watching your best friend get murdered. Sometimes, it's sitting there while your parents argue as they go through a divorce. Sometimes, it's being shoved into a pool when you can't swim. Trigger Events are different between each parahuman, but universally, they suck. As a consolation prize, though, you get superpowers, like flying through the air or shooting laser beams out of your eyes or whatever. I'm sure you don't even need to think about it to remember when _yours_ was."

"Ah." I wasn't sure what to say to that. The Locker was…something I'd rather forget, if I could. "Yeah."

Tattletale blew out a sigh from between her lips. "Not everyone gets a clean trigger, though. A lot of us, the fact that we even _have_ powers is something that isn't obvious, so when we get them, no one can even tell. Some people, though, theirs are _messy_. They trigger, they don't have control of their powers, it's a high stress situation, and _someone_ gets hurt or _killed_ , and _everyone_ watching it happen _knows_ who's responsible. And in a situation like that, without someone like the PRT or the Protectorate to help control the narrative…"

I looked down at the asphalt, and what she was saying felt all too real. It could have been _me_ , in fact. The Locker had been my first Install, done more on instinct than out of any real intent, but if I hadn't been so panicked that I threw it away as soon as I could, if I had burst out of that locker with all of that power, half mad from everything and lashing out in my pain and anger, would that have been me? Would I have killed Emma, Sophia, and Madison, only to realize exactly what I'd done once I couldn't take it back?

If I had, I could only imagine I would have run. I would have turned and ran away, and then that would have been me, all over the news, everyone calling me a murderer. I could even imagine a teary-eyed Alan Barnes talking about his monster of a daughter as though she were just an innocent victim.

"You get labeled a villain."

And what would that have done to Dad? To know that I could never go home would be hard on me, but how would Dad deal with it? Having his daughter on the run, never able to see her again, after everything else? Having so many people to blame, but no one to really take it out on but himself? Everyone telling him I was scum, that I needed to be put down, that the PRT were gonna bring me in, and that he should be ashamed of me…

Dad had already broken when Mom died, and he hadn't really put himself back together. Losing me, too, would…

"Yep," Tattletale said grimly. "And once that happens, you've got no secret identity, you've got the heroes trying to bring you in whenever they see you, and basically the only option you've got left is…"

"Start robbing banks or stealing wallets," I finished.

"Or join a gang."

The bitterness in Tattletale's voice startled me. When I looked over at her, she had hunched over herself, folding her arms across her knees, and she was scowling darkly.

"Sometimes, you can't help that one," she said, something strange in her voice. More personal, maybe, like she was drawing from an example of something she'd actually seen happen. "Some asshole comes along and puts a gun to your head, says, 'Join or get a nine millimeter lobotomy,' or threatens to kill everyone you care about. A lot of independents wind up in that kind of situation, especially in Brockton."

She glanced my way.

" _You_ probably don't have to worry about that. You're basically Eidolon Lite. Only an idiot or someone with more pride than sense, like Lung, would actually try anything against you." She gave a short, quiet laugh. "Honestly, I pity the guy who tries to pick a fight against you. Siegfried is frightening enough, but he's a pretty straightforward guy. Someone more like a wizard would be completely unfair."

I jumped a little, startled. "How did you…"

She tapped the side of her head, grinning that Cheshire grin. "Not that hard to figure out, really. Plus, I heard some of what you were talking about with Miss M. and Armsmaster. They were right, you know. Triumvirate tier. Easily."

I flushed and looked away, oddly pleased. Even hearing it before from Miss Militia and Armsmaster didn't make it less flattering to hear again.

It was an incredibly heady feeling, receiving that kind of praise. I'd known almost from the moment I started experimenting with my powers that they were probably in the same tier as Alexandria, Legend, and Eidolon, and I'd never really forgotten that. To hear other people say it, though, to get that sort of… _validation_ after nearly two years of Emma's insults and snide comments from her hangers-on, it felt…good. Better than good. Better than I had a word for, really.

"Well," said Tattletale, "anyway, there's still a couple of things I needed to talk to you about, but it's getting really late. You need to get home and I need to get back to base before my teammates form a search party and come looking for me."

From a pouch somewhere on her hip, she pulled out a small notepad — barely more than a stack of post-it notes, really — and a pen, pressed it up against one thigh for stability, and started scribbling across it rapidly. When she was done, she tore away the topmost sheet, clicked her pen and put it away, then turned back to me.

"Here." She handed it to me and I took it. In the dark, I couldn't read what it said. "That's my personal cell number and my username on PHO. Give me a call or send me a PM or something and we'll meet up tomorrow after you get out of school, yeah? We can go over everything else important then."

"I…okay." I nodded. "Sure. I'll do that."

She offered me the grin that I was starting to think was her trademark. "It's a date."

I felt my cheeks flush again as I remembered the kiss she'd given me before, and like I had with Armsmaster, I found myself wishing my mask had covered my full face, if only to hide my embarrassment.

"I…yeah."

Tattletale stood up, stretching her legs and brushing dirt off of her rear. After a moment, she turned to me again, offered a smile and a wave, and said, "Goodnight, Apocrypha."

"Goodnight," I replied almost automatically.

Then, she turned away and started off at a jog — like she was in a bit of a hurry but not rushing desperately — and she turned a corner and was gone.

And suddenly, I was alone again and somewhat cold. Even though it was on the cusp of summer, it was still a fairly chilly night, and my costume apparently wasn't much designed for the cold. For a long moment, I just sat there, feeling the skin along my arms prickle underneath the bodysuit, thinking about everything that had happened. About how strange and impossible it seemed, like something out of a book or a TV show.

I'd gone out tonight with no plans of getting into a major fight, with the idea I might stop a drug deal or a mugging or something. Small time stuff, just something to sink my teeth into. Instead, I'd found Lung, decided to fight him to protect the kids he was talking about killing, beat him up after he and I trashed a street together, later found out those kids were actually a group of teenager capes who'd pissed him off by robbing his casino, met Armsmaster, who told me I'd be welcomed into the Wards with open arms, met Miss Militia, who told me much of the same, and…maybe made a friend?

It felt almost like too much. There should be a limit on the number of world-altering things that happened in the course of an hour or two, and this night had long surpassed that limit. I…should probably go home and get some sleep; I could consider all the ways in which my mind had been blown tonight tomorrow, after I'd had some time to process it all.

With that decided, I hefted myself to my feet and tested out my legs. My knees didn't wobble and I didn't feel like I was moments from collapsing, so I took that as a sign that I'd gotten enough of a second wind to make it back home and used one, big leap to propel myself up onto the top of the lowest building — conveniently, a short, squat thing that was probably a bakery, or at least had been one at some point in its lifetime.

Once I'd gotten back up there, I turned back towards the safer part of town, where there were still lights and electricity on, leaving the Docks to my back. Then, I took off at a run, leap across to the next roof, and started back towards home.

It took maybe fifteen or twenty minutes, hopping roofs. Much, much faster than if I'd run back home along the roads or the sidewalk. I was probably going to be spoiled by it; after making my way through town that quickly, even the bus I took to school would seem to be moving at a snail's pace. I could see myself wanting to get everywhere I went like that, and there would undoubtedly be days where I was running late and would have to convince myself to walk or run or use the bus, like a normal person.

I arrived back home much in the same way as I'd left. Once I got close enough that I risked being seen, I slipped back into my Hassan Install — and discovered, when I checked, that the eighty splits I'd used to distract Lung had completely replenished, like none of them had ever been killed — shimmied open the window to my bedroom that I'd left oh so slightly cracked when I went out, and shut it behind me with a click.

Safe and sound back in my own room, I dropped out of the Hundred-faced Hassan and straight back to normal, unremarkable Taylor Hebert, dressed in my pajamas. I was, once again, an ordinary high school student who had to get up and go to school in a few hours. To look at me, you'd never think I'd fought and defeated the strongest, most dangerous cape in the Bay just an hour ago.

Once I returned to normal, the exhaustion hit me again all at once. My whole body ached faintly, like I'd pushed myself too far too fast on a run, only all over, and it was all I could do to peel back my covers and slide in between them.

Even so, as my head hit the pillow and my eyes drooped closed, I couldn't help the smile that curled on my lips. I'd done it. I'd gone out and become a hero.

And Emma and Sophia could _never_ take that away from me.

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

 **As always, read, review, and enjoy.**

 **And for early access to chapters and bonus content:**

 **p a treon . com (slash) James_D_Fawkes**


	7. Interlude 1-a: Wildcard Gambit

**Interlude 1.a: Wildcard Gambit**

Tattletale's thoughts were heavy as she entered the loft and quietly closed the door behind her. There were a lot of things on her mind, all of them related to the girl she'd just…befriended? They'd certainly parted amicably, and she was sure she'd made a fairly strong connection, but goddamn, that girl was seriously jaded, not to mention seriously screwed in the head.

Idealism like that bordered on psychosis.

The first thing Tattletale did when the door clicked shut behind her was to reach up and remove her mask, and like that, Tattletale became Lisa again. Then, she closed her eyes, sighed, and rubbed at the bridge of her nose.

What a fucking mess, though.

A new heroine with the power and ability to take down Lung, strong enough that she wouldn't be out of place among the Triumvirate, and as if that wasn't a fearsome enough thing, she was also so fucking jaded and simultaneously so ridiculously naïve that she had been ready to turn Lisa into sidewalk art the minute Lisa showed even a hint of hostility. It was probably a miracle she'd actually managed to get the girl to relax.

Odds were, she was gonna be in _someone's_ hands before the month was out. Probably the Protectorate and the PRT, provided they didn't screw it up somehow, and that didn't bode well for Lisa and the Undersiders. Not as long as they were under Coil, anyway.

When she made it to the living room, it was to find Alec parked in front of the TV and indulging in some gory action game — a first person shooter of some kind, with plenty of blood and violence. Rachel was nowhere to be seen, and Lisa heard Brian moving about in the kitchen, making something to eat.

As though to remind her of all the energy she had burned through in the past couple hours, Lisa's stomach let out a sympathetic rumble. She'd have to grab something once she got changed.

"How's your girlfriend?" Alec asked without looking away from his game.

Lisa's lips pursed, but she answered and ignored the jab for what it was. "Not even singed."

Alec laughed. "You were right, then. She _is_ fucking scary."

"She's also fifteen, and tonight was her first night out."

Alec paused his game and turned to look at her. "Seriously? And she blew through Lung just like that?"

"Just like that," said Lisa.

"I thought we said we weren't going to try recruiting her," said Brian, walking in with a plate of leftover pizza. He and Alec had already gotten out of their costumes and into something more casual.

"I still agree with that, by the way," Alec chimed in. "Really bad fucking idea."

"You were the one who said not to," Brian went on, as though Alec hadn't spoken. "That she wouldn't go for it."

"She wouldn't and I didn't," said Lisa. "But that doesn't mean I can't be her friend, either."

Alec let out a laugh. "What?"

Brian gave her a strange look, a kind of honest confusion with a tinge of skepticism.

"I think you'll have to explain that one to me. Why would she want to be friends if she wouldn't join up with us?"

Lisa waved it off. "I'll explain later," she promised. "First, though, I gotta go check in with the boss. He made it real clear he wanted to hear from me when we got back."

Brian's lips pressed together, but he didn't push. "Right."

Lisa turned around and headed off towards her room. The sounds of Alec's game — unpaused, now that the conversation was over — followed her back until she closed the door.

Alone and in the privacy of her own room, Lisa let out another sigh and peeled off the skintight spandex that was her costume; the domino mask was set down on her nightstand, where it could be grabbed and put on in a hurry. Once her costume was off and hanging on the back of her desk chair, she threw on the nearest pair of pajamas she could find, pulled out her phone, and sat down.

For a long moment, she didn't do anything but sit there, staring at her phone and silently debating exactly how much detail to give Coil. There were advantages to being vague, but also advantages to being specific, and naturally, both of those and everything in between also had their own disadvantages, too.

In the end, Lisa pursed her lips and decided to wing it; she'd pick a plan once she knew more about what Coil had available and work around his reactions, rather than sticking to any one thing. So, she pulled up her contacts list, selected the one labelled "Boss," and hit the call button.

He answered after exactly three rings — a bit of a mind game, a way of showing that he was not anxious, but also professional enough to answer almost immediately. A way of showing dominance by implying that his time was important, but also sweet-talking his employees by implying that he was willing to use it to hear what they had to say.

Slick bastard.

"Boss."

"Tattletale," said Coil's voice on the other end. "Your report?"

"What, no pleasantries?" said Tattletale. "No, 'I'm glad you're alive, Tattletale?' Especially since you sent us against _Lung_."

"I'm glad you're alive, Tattletale," Coil said, voice entirely flat. The maddening thing was not knowing whether he was actually glad he hadn't lost her or if he was just mocking her. "Now, your report?"

Tattletale pursed her lips again. He had no tells; there was no eagerness, no rush, nothing. He could just as easily be eager to hear what had happened as he could be tired and impatient. It might even have been that he didn't even care, and it was just another method of establishing who had the power.

"Lung went down," Lisa said, deciding to start off vague. Gauge exactly how much he already knew. "Armsmaster picked him up. Last I saw, he was foamed and on his way to a PRT holding cell. Probably won't stay there, though."

The PRT and their damn revolving door cells; anyone with enough capes could rely on being broken out by their allies, a luxury that the Undersiders probably wouldn't have. Knowing Coil, he'd just as soon cut them loose as rescue them.

"I see." There was a short moment of silence. "And when he gets out, he'll likely come after the Undersiders again."

"He'll probably have bigger things to worry about; no _way_ Kaiser's gonna let this one pass him by."

"A valid point," Coil conceded effortlessly. "Very well. Make whatever preparations you need. In meantime, I'll see about finding a replacement." Replacement? Tattletale wondered if she'd heard him right. "My condolences for Regent."

 _What?_

It…made no sense. Lisa tried to wrap her head around it, tried to figure out where the line had come from, but for the life of her, she had no idea why Coil would think Regent was dead. If they'd actually fought Lung, then maybe…

Something went wrong, she realized. She had no idea what or how, but for some reason, Coil had gotten a report or something that told him Regent had died.

This was an opening.

Carefully, Lisa cracked open the door to her power and let it trickle out.

 _[Show of power. Intended to imply resources you don't know about.]_

Right, right, that much was obvious. Coil had done that kind of thing before, too, like a reminder every now and again about who held whose leash.

 _[Received report. Report stated Regent died.]_

More obviousness.

 _[Report conflicts with actual events.]_

And she'd moved on into uselessness. If she wanted anything more, she'd have to knock Coil off guard. Lisa unstuck her mouth and said, "Regent is fine."

A long silence followed, and for several seconds that felt like minutes, Coil didn't say anything at all.

 _[Is surprised]_ Lisa's power supplied. _[Trusted source. Trusted source's information. Trusted accuracy of information. Trusted implicitly that information would be accurate.]_

So it was someone he'd thought would never lie to him, or else that person was in a position where they _wouldn't_ lie to him ( _[More likely]_ her power added helpfully, as though she hadn't already known that that was how Coil worked). In her own experience, that would mean that either the person in question was somehow indebted to him or on his payroll, like Grue, or else they were being forced into it, like Lisa, and lying would be too dangerous.

Either way, the implications were _enormous_. A reliable source, somehow unreliable now? That could be any number of things, from simple human error to powers that conflicted with each other. Even still, Coil had never really been wrong like this, before, so how…

"I…see," Coil said at length. "It seems there's an error I need to correct."

 _[Is not happy to be surprised] No duh, power. [Is intending on interrogating other agent. Will go to extreme methods to verify source of inaccuracy. Other agent likely to be tortured or killed.]_

Whoa. Okay, this was serious. Coil was a scumbag, but in all of her experiences with him, what he usually relied upon was the _threat_ of violence. Aside from the pistol he'd had her threatened with when he, uh, _coerced_ her into his employ, the most he'd ever done was remind her that he had her on his leash. She'd never once seen him actually directly _hurt_ someone before, like pull out the tacks and thumbscrews and _make him talk_.

If he was going to go _that_ far, this must've really shaken him — but what, exactly, was the cause?

"I understand there was another parahuman at the fight — unaffiliated?"

Apocrypha. Of course he knew about Apocrypha, but if he was going to mention her, why not do it by name? Surely he had to —

 _[Does not know her name. Other agent was not in position to hear it. Other agent was too far away. Other agent did not see your conversation with her. Other agent did not see her conversation with Armsmaster and Miss Militia.]_

Holy shit. That meant that he had _no idea_ what her powers were.

"Yeah," Lisa found herself saying. "A girl. About my age."

And that meant that she absolutely _could not_ let him know. Not unless and until he asked her to work up a full dossier, and even then, she'd specifically leave some parts out. The plan Lisa had already started concocting looked like it was even more likely to work, now, and there was no way she was going to give Coil more cards than she absolutely had to.

"And she survived?"

 _[Is trying to find discrepancies. Is trying to narrow down source of discrepancies. Is trying to verify level of accuracy of other agent's report.]_

A stab of pain lanced through her temples, but she ignored it.

Okay, then. She just had to be vague enough that everything she said was technically true, so that if and when he got more specifics from someone else, he couldn't claim she'd lied to him at any point. The only other people likely to have any information about Apocrypha's power were Armsmaster and Miss Militia, and provided they didn't file a threat assessment for her with any haste, Lisa could keep the exact nature of her new wildcard's powers a secret.

"Of course," Lisa said. "Lung wouldn't have gone down if it wasn't for her."

Technically true, the best kind of truth.

"Powers?"

"She's a pretty high end Breaker," Lisa fibbed. Again, it was technically true, too. "Not someone I'd want to face in a fight."

Understatement of the year, there.

"Can she be recruited?"

 _[Wants her either under his thumb or out of the way. Willing to resort to bribery. Willing to resort to threats. Willing to resort to assassination.]_

 _Shit_. Not good. Not good at all. Did he think that Apocrypha was the reason why the report was wrong? Equally important question — was she? If he decided she was, then he might just get rid of her before Lisa was ready to try and throw him off, and if he attacked Apocrypha in her civilian identity, he might actually manage to kill her. If she _actually_ was, then that made her even _more_ valuable to Lisa.

Okay. Play it cool. If he thought she was trying to recruit Apocrypha, he might just be satisfied with that.

"Maybe," Lisa told him. Of course she couldn't — not to the Undersiders, at any rate. "I'm already working on it. I'm meeting her tomorrow."

"Good. Keep me updated, and before you make any solid offers, compile a dossier on her for me. I want to know who my new subordinate is going to be."

 _[Doesn't want to take chances. Wants to be sure before committing to any action. Will resort to drastic measures if he thinks it's necessary.]_

 _Shit, shit, and double shit._

This was a really, really fine line. Lisa would have to be extremely careful going forward — if she screwed up with Apocrypha, she had a Triumvirate level cape as her enemy, and worse, as an enemy who hated Lisa for betraying her. If she screwed up with Coil, if he figured out she'd never planned on recruiting Apocrypha and had always known it wasn't possible, her whole plan could fall apart around her ears, and if he ever realized she was behind it…

She clamped down on her power to keep it from showing her different scenarios for how Coil would punish her little mutiny. Not only did she have a headache coming on from overuse, but she absolutely _did not want to know_.

No. She _had_ to do this right, and do it right the first time. She had to play her cards right so that Apocrypha was on board with her plan, and she had to play them so that Coil had no idea what was in her hand. She wouldn't get a second chance.

"Got it, Boss."

 _Click_.

Lisa let her arm drop and absently thumbed the "End Call" button as she sighed. She ran a hand through her hair, then brought it back down to pinch the bridge of her nose. The Thinker headache that was starting to rear its ugly head was one that would probably put her out of commission for most of tomorrow morning.

"Shit."

There were _way_ too many ways this could go wrong. What had she been thinking, concocting this whole convoluted plan?

 _Oh right. I was thinking I could get out from under Coil's fucking thumb._

Yeah. Right. It all came back to that plan for getting out from under Coil's thumb, being her own woman again, making her own choices. She wouldn't even have bothered if her freedom wasn't on the line. That was all it was about.

Lisa let out a throaty chuckle and tossed her phone haphazardly onto her desk. "You're usually much better at lying to yourself, you know," she whispered to the open air. "Admit it. You just saw a lonely girl and figured she could use a friend. Everything else came after that."

Ah, geez. She was gonna turn into fucking Mother Theresa, at this rate.

Lisa sighed again — it seemed like she was doing a lot of that, tonight — and forced herself out of her chair as her belly rumbled. Her stomach was starting to make demands of her, and much as she liked to brood and stew and ruminate over every minor detail, as was the nature of her power, she'd regret it if she didn't grab at least a slice of pizza or two.

Alec was still playing his video games when Lisa came back into the common area, and Brian had long since finished off his own pizza and was watching Alec play with a vague interest. When she came closer, he turned to her as though he'd heard her coming, and she didn't need her power to read the question on his face.

"Gimme a second to grab something to eat, or I'm gonna keel over," she said, and Brian nodded.

She made her way over into the kitchen and pulled out the box of leftover pizza. There weren't that many other options, and she needed something cheap, greasy, and unhealthy to take her mind off of her mood — comfort food, in other words.

Once she'd pulled out a pair of pieces, stuck them on a plate, and set them to warming up, she reached back into the fridge and poured herself a glass of water. Then, she gulped half of it down in one go, popped a couple of aspirin (not that conventional medicine could cure a Thinker headache), and refilled it again.

By that time, her pizza had warmed up, so she grabbed her plate and her glass, strode into and across the living room, and took a seat on the same couch as Brian.

It was really obvious that he wanted to start asking the moment she sat down, but Brian, at least, was mostly a nice guy, so he waited until she'd scarfed down her pizza and taken a few sips of her water before he actually began with the questions.

"So," he said, "you said you'd explain. Explain."

"Just what I said." Lisa shrugged. "I'm making friends with her."

"You're the one who said that she wouldn't join us, though," Brian reminded her, as though she'd forgotten. She hadn't. "And we all agreed that we didn't want the heat she'd bring down on us if she joined, so we weren't going to even bother trying to recruit her."

"And that hasn't changed," Lisa countered. "Like I said, she's too much of a goody-two-shoes to join a bunch of villains. It took a lot a sweet-talking and a couple of fibs just to convince her we were actually a group of independent heroes — the fact that almost all of our jobs have been against other gangs and their business fronts helped with that — just to sit there and talk with me."

"So?"

"So, if she'd _really_ thought I was a villain, she would've fought me right then and there."

"Wouldn't have risked that at all if you hadn't stayed behind."

"I stayed behind to _make friends_ with her," Lisa told him a little irritably.

"Why?" asked Brian. "You just said you weren't trying to recruit her, so what difference does it make whether or not you're friends?"

Lisa looked at him incredulously. "Don't tell me you can't see the benefit of having a hero that strong on your Christmas card list."

Brian grimaced and rubbed tiredly at his cheek. "Okay, yeah," he said, "I can see that. Still wasn't something you needed to do. The Undersiders are small time — chances are, she would've never known we existed, if you hadn't gone out there and talked to her."

"She would've found out, eventually," said Lisa. "If not from me, she would've eventually heard about us from Armsmaster or Miss Militia. At least like this, there's enough of a rapport that she'd hesitate to actually fight us."

"And that's good and all," said Brian, "but what if she decides she likes us so much that she wants to _join_? We already all agreed that that kind of firepower would put an awful lot more attention on us that we want to have."

"And I keep telling you, she won't," Lisa argued. "Brian, you're not getting it. This isn't some lonely, helpless newbie with…with _bug control_ or something like that. She's the _real deal_. Goodness, justice, mercy, righteousness, that sort of thing. The kind of hero the Protectorate likes to talk about in their PR, but doesn't really exist. She and Legend would get on like _best friends_."

Brian shook his head. "You're not exactly selling this as a good idea."

"Because she's not just a hero, she's also jaded as fuck." Lisa scowled and leaned back into the couch. "And really fucking lonely. Bullied, maybe? Abusive home life? I dunno, but I did get a good enough read on her to see that she has major trust issues."

"So…what? Is this some kind of pet project of yours? Help out the lonely, bullied girl, even if she might be an enemy, later on?"

"God, Brian." Lisa rolled her eyes. "Did it ever occur to you that maybe I wanted a friend who also happened to be a girl? You guys are nice and all, but I can't exactly go clothes shopping with you."

Brian opened his mouth.

"If you say Rachel, you're _really_ missing the point."

Brian's mouth snapped shut with a _click_ , and he gave a grunt. "Fine. I know better than to try and win an argument with a Thinker. Just make sure this doesn't blow up in our faces."

"I know that better than you do," Lisa reminded him.

She was the one walking this fucking tightrope, after all, and she was a good enough Thinker that she had people wondering whether or not she was actually as psychic as she claimed. She didn't need him to tell her exactly how messy it would be if the proverbial shit hit the fan.

"Are Mommy and Daddy done arguing now?" Alec interjected. "I'd like to go back to playing my video game, if you don't mind."

Brian made a disgusted sound in the back of his throat, shot Alec a glare, and then he stood up from his spot, gave Lisa one last glance, and walked away. Lisa watched him go, frowning, and even though she had won the argument — for what little of an argument it was — she could not find it in herself to be happy about it.

Brian…wasn't exactly a bad person. A bit jaded, dealt a crappy hand by parents who probably had no business being parents, and stressed out trying to care for the only person in his life who really mattered to him (and Lisa knew she had no right being upset about that), but not the devil, nor even his second nephew twice removed.

She couldn't tell him what she was planning. Couldn't tell him just how much of an asshole their boss was. Couldn't try and convince him to find another employer. Unless she had a better offer, she couldn't do any of that and expect him to pick her side, not when it would mean losing a steady income and even the veneer of legitimacy Coil gave him so that he could take custody of his younger sister.

"D'you think he forgot that he doesn't actually have a room here?" Alec asked somewhat unkindly.

Lisa didn't answer immediately.

She couldn't tell Alec, either. Well, she _could_ , but the absolute best case scenario was that Alec skipped town and found somewhere else to set up shop. More likely, he'd stay on until it looked like Coil was going to go down, then move on and attach himself to some other group. In either case, there wasn't enough of a connection for him to choose Lisa over Coil, not without — like Brian — Lisa being able to provide a better offer than Coil was currently giving him.

Lisa glanced down the hall.

Rachel… Yeah. Rachel would probably be the easiest to convince, but that particular mess had its own set of problems. They weren't exactly on the best of terms, and Lisa was aware that she could be a bit of a bitch (heh), but she was not entirely heartless: without the Undersiders, Rachel would have much more trouble taking care of her dogs. She was also violent enough and ambivalent enough about human life that she might kill someone over the mistreatment of a dog, and Lisa put good odds on her running afoul of Hookwolf and his dogfighting rings, if the Undersiders broke up and she stayed in the Bay.

More likely, she'd just…drift. Eventually, she'd make it somewhere else, cut out a little slice for herself, and move on whenever things got too hot.

At the end of the day, Lisa was alone. It might not be next week, it might not be next month, but soon enough, she was going to be free of Coil. Provided Apocrypha still wanted to be friends after that, she would also have a friend in one of the strongest heroes in the Bay — probably the country. Safety, security, and whatever money she could swindle out from Coil's nose between now and then.

She just had to tear apart her entire team and their lives to do it.

Were it so easy.

Lisa sighed — _again_ — and pushed herself onto her feet. There was no point in worrying about the heavy stuff when she had a Thinker headache trying to bust her head open from the inside out; she'd just wind up making herself feel worse.

"I'm going to bed," Lisa told Alec. "And I've got a massive headache, so try to keep the noise down, yeah?"

"Going to see your girlfriend tomorrow?"

"Why? You jealous?"

"No," said Alec. "You're not my type. Neither is Tall Girl — those muscles don't really do it for me."

Lisa thought about telling him that the muscles Apocrypha had had almost all came from Siegfried, but it would be funnier when he saw her again for himself. For now, it was her own private joke.

"Whatever. Just keep the noise to a minimum. I need my beauty sleep."

"Yeah, yeah."

Fortunately, Alec was not _that_ much of an asshole, or at least he didn't want to risk Rachel's wrath, so he didn't do something as jerkish as turn the volume up all the way on the TV, and Lisa left him to it and went back to her room. The light on in the kitchen told her that Brian was there — probably brooding a little and nursing a soda while he waited for Alec to get tired and go to bed so he could crash on the couch — but she didn't hear so much as a peep from Rachel's room.

Lisa's door clicked shut behind her, and she took a minute to stretch out a little in the dark. Then, she grabbed her phone and set an alarm for late morning, so that she could be up early enough to have time to put on some makeup and some nice-but-not-too-nice clothes. She took a glance at her closet — or what passed for one in her room — and decided that she'd pick something out later.

For now, she climbed into bed, closed her eyes, and settled down into her pillow for a nice, long sleep.

After all, she had a date tomorrow.

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

 **As always, read, review, and enjoy.**

 **And for early access to chapters and bonus content:**

 **p a treon . com (slash) James_D_Fawkes**


	8. Interlude 1-b: Empathy Impulse Resonance

**Interlude 1.b: Empathy Impulse Resonance**

"You still working on that Hebert case, Doyle?"

Detective Kevin Doyle looked up from the file he'd been staring at for what felt like hours to the face one of his fellow officers, who was holding a steaming mug of coffee. Kevin sighed and leaned back into his chair, rubbing tiredly at his eyes.

"Yeah," he admitted. "It just won't stop _bugging_ me."

"It's been three months without any leads; most guys woulda given up, by now, 'specially with this caseload you got sitting here," said Detective Ryan Richards. He took a long, loud sip of his coffee, and a brief surge of jealousy welled up in Kevin's gut. Bastard always went out to get his coffee, and the rest of the precinct — Kevin included — slummed it with the sludge from the coffee machine in the break room.

Not everyone could throw around the kind of money Richards did, after all.

"You're probably right," Kevin admitted, purposefully ignoring what smelled like ambrosia in a cup. "But that's the thing that _bothers_ me."

"What?" Richards arched an eyebrow. "The fact you got no leads?"

"Right." Kevin nodded. He tapped the file with the fingers of one hand. "No fingerprints on the locker aside from the vic's, plenty of DNA, sure — but no way to connect anyone to anything, considering all that…that _shit_ in her locker. The sheer _volume_ of female samples means we can't definitively finger any _one_ girl for the deed, so it's circumstantial, at best."

"And no witnesses," Richards finished for him.

"And no witnesses," Kevin agreed. "The Hebert girl can name names, sure, but since she never actually saw who locked her in, her testimony would never hold up under scrutiny. Any lawyer worth his salt would poke so many holes in it, it might as well be Swiss cheese. It wasn't even enough to get a search warrant for those three girls' cell phones. But the thing that really gets me, see, that really twists my head around — you remember high school, right?"

Richards offered something like a grin. "I try not to."

"You and half the world," Kevin shot back. "Anyway — I remember _nothing_ happened when I was in high school without half the school knowing by lunchtime. Who broke up with who, who lost their virginities over the weekend, who got his head shoved in the toilet — if someone passed gas in first period, everybody else knew by fifth. Point is, if there was something worth talking about, then there was someone who'd seen the whole thing with his own eyes, and he told anyone who listened."

"Not that different from the real world, actually," Richards remarked. He slurped another sip of his coffee. "Tabloids are always talking about something, after all."

"Right. So, there's this big prank in school. A girl gets shoved in her locker and left there for several hours, and in the first few minutes, you know she's gotta be screaming her lungs out, banging against the door for all she's worth. Teachers are probably already in their classrooms or whatever, but at this point, most of the students are either just showing up or heading to their own lockers, right?"

"I'd guess so, yeah," Richards allowed. "I mean, that's the first thing _I_ did in the morning, yeah, so most of 'em were probably at their lockers."

"Right." Kevin nodded again. "So the girl gets shoved in her locker, the other kids are milling through the hallways, she's screaming to raise all hell, and…somehow, no one sees who did it or hears her screaming. Not a single one of Winslow's students, some…what? Fourteen hundred or so? None of these fourteen hundred kids hears her screaming _or_ sees her get shoved into the locker or by whom. Does that make any sense to you?"

"You're forgetting about one thing."

"What's that?"

Richards reached down and tapped the stack of papers in the file folder, the one labeled "WITNESS STATEMENTS." It was a depressingly small and sparse pile, and most of the statements in it were from kids who'd said they hadn't seen or heard anything at all. It was the most anemic and useless stack of witness statements Kevin had ever seen; there were _mob_ _hits_ with more substantive evidence.

"Winslow's a shithole," Richards said plainly. "Half the kids in there are part of one gang or another. None of those ABB chinks or E88 skinheads is gonna be willing to put themselves on our radar by being a witness in a police investigation, least of all for what seems like the local pariah. See, their friends and their bosses'll only see them being all buddy-buddy with us, won't even bother asking what they're doing, just put a bullet in the back of their head. Gangbangers ain't exactly the brightest bulbs in the box, but they ain't stupid enough to risk themselves like that, either."

Richards had a point. Gangsters and thugs distrusted the police on principle, and the feeling was pretty mutual. No way any of the ABB or the E88 were going to put themselves out there to testify for an unpopular loner like Taylor Hebert — it was just a fact of life.

But Kevin already knew that. Richards hadn't told him anything he hadn't already figured out for himself.

"I already figured that, though," Kevin replied. "Sure, the guys from the ABB and the E88 wouldn't say anything unless it was to point us at the other side, and the guys looking to join up would keep pretty mum, too, but not everyone at Winslow is a gangster. There's plenty of kids there who wouldn't have any affiliation with either gang, and something this big is gonna be all over the school. In spite of that, _none_ of them have come forward to say anything about who pushed the Hebert girl in, and _none_ of them thought to go and let her out. _Why_?"

That, Kevin felt, was the million dollar question. _Why?_ Why, in a school with more than a thousand students, had not _one_ of them had the _common human decency_ to pull the girl out of her locker? Why had it taken several hours and a _janitor_ for someone to notice the smell? Why hadn't one of the _teachers_ noticed it on the way to lunch?

Why was everyone, _including_ Winslow's staff, trying to pretend it had never happened?

Richards scoffed and sipped some more of his coffee.

"Jesus, Doyle, it's not like it's some kind of _conspiracy_."

"That's the part I can't figure out," Kevin said, "because it certainly _seems_ like one. The ABB and E88 kids, I buy. Hell, a few of them not wanting to out their crushes or the Track team not wanting to turn on one of their star runners, I'd buy that, too. One or two not wanting the attention of Emma Barnes and her lawyer father, I'd even buy that. But the _entire school_? What are they all hiding? What are they all _afraid_ of, that no one is willing to testify or go on record about what happened that day?"

"Fuck if I know," said Richards.

Kevin sighed and rubbed at his forehead, where he could feel the beginnings of a headache forming. It really was maddening.

"Yeah. Fuck if you know, fuck if I know, fuck if anybody knows. Only ones who know what happened have sealed their lips tighter than Fort Knox. As far as anyone is saying, that girl wound up in her locker by magic and a ghost closed it behind her."

And didn't that sum up the situation? There was plenty of evidence, sure, but none of it of any use. They had three suspects who had been named, but aside from the victim, who couldn't say beyond a shadow of a doubt that they were even responsible, no witnesses to place them at the scene and no proof they'd even been there at all. There were no fingerprints, too many DNA samples to be reliable, and they had so little to go on that they hadn't even managed to convince a judge to hand them a search warrant.

If there was any evidence to be had, Kevin was _sure_ it was on those girls' cell phones, but without a warrant…

So, as far as the law was concerned, Taylor Hebert's locker had been filled with a biohazard by God or the Devil or something, she had wound up inside of it through magic or some contrivance of coincidences, and a ghost or a wandering spirit — or hell, the wind — had shut and locked the door behind her. Sophia Hess, Emma Barnes, and Madison Clements had nothing to do with any of it, and anyone who said otherwise was spreading baseless accusations.

Alan Barnes had made sure to throw around words like "slander" and "libel" and "lawsuit" when Doyle had gone to ask the Barnes girl a few questions.

Kevin sighed again and sagged back into his chair, slumping. He rubbed idly at the spot on his hip where he'd taken some shrapnel during an encounter with Oni Lee — it'd been acting up, lately, to match his stress levels.

"I think I'm gonna buck this up the chain, see if I can't get the FBI or Homeland to take a look at it."

Richards, who had been the middle of taking another sip, startled and choked on his coffee, pounding on his chest with one hand as he coughed.

"Wh — uk — what?" he asked. "You serious, Doyle? Get the Feds involved?"

"Deadly," said Kevin. "Probably shoulda gone to them in the first place. You read the report on what all was shoved into that locker, Richards?"

Richards made a wagging motion with one hand. "Sk — uk — skimmed it."

"Lucky you weren't assigned the case. The captain don't take lightly to doing things half-hearted like that."

"'Scuse me if I didn't feel like ruining my lunch."

"You should take a look," said Kevin. "Really read it through. Rotted blood, bugs of all kinds, used tampons and stuff like that. ME called it Satan's Stew. There was enough hazardous material in there to call it a biological weapon. Hospital report said it's a miracle the Hebert girl didn't die of Toxic Shock or catch an STD or something."

Kevin was the lead detective on the case, so he'd seen it personally (and nearly thrown up from the smell). He'd also been the one to talk to the doctors who'd treated the girl, get their statements about the situation, what they were legally allowed to talk about, anyway. Even from the outset, he'd been keenly aware that this whole situation was seriously fucked up.

Richards grimaced, took a look at his coffee cup, then set it aside. "Biological weapon, huh. Bioterrorism, in other words. Yeah, that shoulda gone straight to the Feds. Any idea why it didn't?"

Kevin shrugged. "Captain decided not to send it up to 'em. Don't ask me why."

Richards snorted.

"That's 'cause he didn't want it getting solved. Winslow's a shithole, Doyle. Any chance this could wind up putting away one of the gang kids would mean the whole place blowing up in the aftermath. Captain probably didn't want to risk it for a girl who came out the other end of this shaken up, but otherwise fine."

Kevin scowled and the embers of frustration that had simmered in his gut for three months flared up into anger and indignation.

"All the more reason to send it up the chain, then," he said a little hotly. "The captain can yell at me all he likes, afterwards. As long as this case gets solved, I'll take it without complaint."

Richards's brow furrowed. "You really mean that." He sighed and scratched at his stubble. "Jesus, Doyle, what's got you wound up so tight about this case? You a family friend of the Heberts or something?"

"Never met 'em."

Richards stared at Kevin for a long moment, as though trying to catch him in a lie, but it was the truth. Kevin had never met the Heberts before this case. He'd heard vaguely about _Danny_ Hebert — guy was practically legendary for his temper and his passion and especially for being good at keeping the dockworkers out of trouble — but never actually met the guy some of the detectives in the organized crime unit called _The Bull_. Not until this mess, that was.

Then, Richards glanced around Kevin's desk, and Kevin realized all too late that he still had a photo of his family propped open in the right hand corner.

Richards snatched it up almost before Kevin could think to grab for it.

"Cute kid," said Richards. He held out the photo and pointed at Kevin's wife, Jenny, who was holding a swaddled baby girl. The photo had been taken three days after they'd brought that little girl home. "How old is she?"

"…Ten months, next Friday."

"You know," Richards set the picture back down, "I'm pretty sure one of the big things they talk about at the academy is not getting personally involved, not letting your feelings affect how you tackle a case. Ain't that lesson one on how to be a cop?"

"Oh, like _you've_ never had a case that felt really personal!" Kevin snapped. He reached over and rearranged the picture of his wife and daughter so that it was set the way it'd been before Richards had picked it up. "You're always trying to snag anything that deals with the mayor. Isn't your sister married to the guy?"

Richards' lips pulled into a frown. He picked his coffee back up.

"Fair enough," he said, before taking a sip.

Kevin sighed. "Look, I'm sorry. It's just…I can't help but think about what her dad must be going through. If it were _my_ little girl shoved into a locker, and no one and nobody was even bothering to come up with answers…"

Probably the most surprising part of the case was that Danny the Bull hadn't kicked up more of a fuss, considering his reputation. If it _had_ been Kevin's little girl who'd been stuffed in that locker and left to rot — well. They'd still be picking up the pieces of whatever poor sap had had to deliver the bad news about how horribly the case was going, to say nothing of the girls who'd been responsible for it.

Kevin had heard something about the school seeking a settlement, though, and the dockworkers had been hard up for jobs since the Bay's economy crashed. Maybe Hebert had been forced to settle because he hadn't been able to afford pursuing the case in court? Kevin didn't know.

"Yeah." Richards sighed, too. "Alright. Listen, you go ahead and try to get this sent to the FBI, get the Feds to come down and take over. You're right, a biohazard like that is a big deal, no matter how you slice it. If that don't work, or if the captain needs a little convincing, I'll talk to my brother-in-law and see if I can't get the big man to throw some of his weight around. That sound okay to you?"

Kevin offered Richards a weary smile. "You know, Richards, you ain't nearly as bad as all the rumors say you are."

Richards laughed.

"Don't go telling anybody, though. Next thing you know, everyone'll be asking me out to have a beer."

"God knows _that_ would be a tragedy."

"'Course it would. I hate the stuff."

Richards tipped his coffee cup up and drained the last dregs of his expensive brew, then crumpled the cup up with one hand and tossed it in the trash. Kevin watched it go a little jealously — Starchild was Starbucks' more expensive, more exclusive younger sibling, and Kevin had only ever bought coffee there once. It was _that_ good and _that_ expensive.

"You get everything organized and put together — don't want the whole thing falling apart because you forgot to cross your t's and dot your i's," said Richards, "try and get it sent on up to the Feds. If someone tries to give you the runaround or the Captain tries to stonewall you —"

He reached for Kevin's notepad, flipping to a blank page, and tore it off, then grabbed one of Kevin's pens and scribbled out what looked like a telephone number.

"Here," said Richards. "This is my cell number. Call me and give me the word, and I'll talk to my brother-in-law, see if the mayor throwing his weight behind this'll get it where it needs to go. In the meantime, I'll make some inquiries with the Winslow staff, see if I can't figure out what's got everyone so afraid to say one bad word against those three girls."

"Doubt you'll get anywhere," Kevin told him.

"Probably won't," Richards agreed.

"But thanks, Richards. Whether or not this works out, I'll owe you one."

Richards grinned. "I'll make sure to collect on that, one day. For now, though, you and I both got cases we still hafta take care of, and if we sit here yacking back and forth for too much longer, Captain'll probably show up and tear us both a new asshole for slacking off."

Kevin laughed and shook his head. "Ain't that the truth. He'd probably say something like —"

"Like _what_ , Detective Doyle?"

Kevin froze, then slowly, hesitantly turned around to find beady-eyed Captain Simmons staring at him over his bushy mustache, arms folded. The streaks of grey hair stood out at his temples, where a large vein bulged prominently. It was something of a joke around the precinct that it visibly throbbed whenever he was delivering a reprimand, but Kevin couldn't find it funny, now.

"Nothing to say?" Captain Simmons huffed. "No jokes? No wisecracks?"

"N-no, sir," said Kevin. "Never, sir."

"Then you have a case to work on, don't you?" Captain Simmons asked rhetorically. "A murder, if I remember right."

"Yes, sir."

"And you," Captain Simmons turned his attention to Richards, "are still on the Ruby Dreams investigation, aren't you?"

Kevin remembered hearing about that one; apparently, the Undersiders had decided to bust it up. Why the PRT had handed it to the BBPD instead of claiming their usual jurisdiction was something he didn't understand.

"Was gonna send it over to Bradley," grunted Richards, "over in organized crime. Seeing as we're pretty sure it's tied to the ABB."

Captain Simmons' eyes narrowed and his nostrils flared. It was like looking into the face of a particularly angry pitbull.

"Then that's what you should be doing, isn't it?"

Richards swallowed what was probably a witty retort, for that would only serve to dig his hole deeper, and replied, "Yes, sir."

"Good," said the Captain. "If you've got time to flap your gums, you should be using it to work on your caseload, and if your caseload is light enough that you can flap your gums, I've got another dozen or two cases waiting for someone to take them. Now, get back to work!"

Captain Simmons spun on his heel and left back towards his office, stalking with large, heavy footfalls that echoed off the floor. They didn't call him Captain John "the Bear" Simmons for nothing.

"Hardass," muttered Richards.

"And don't you forget it!" Captain Simmons shouted over his shoulder. The sound of his office door slamming seemed to vibrate through the entire precinct.

Once he was gone, Kevin sighed and turned back to Richards. "Better get to it. If he decides he needs to come back a second time…"

Richards grunted. "Yeah. Knowing him, he'll be talking suspensions, next."

"Don't be a stranger, Richards."

"See you later, Doyle."

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

 **As always, read, review, and enjoy.**

 **And for early access to chapters and bonus content:**

 **p a treon . com (slash) James_D_Fawkes**


	9. Pendulum 0-1

**Pendulum 0.1**

[I announce.]

 **+453:39:47**

The abandoned warehouse I'd found was located deep in the Docks, way, way, _way_ into the Azn Bad Boys' territory. Normally, I might have been concerned by that, but it was in such bad shape that even the Merchants would've thought twice about trying to hole up in it. It had four walls and a roof, though, even if it looked like a stiff breeze might do it in, so it suited my purposes just fine.

That didn't mean that no one had watched me come in, though, and it'd be more trouble than it was worth to deal with a couple of gangers who thought they could — _urgh_ , just the idea was sickening — have a little fun, so once the door had closed behind me, I waited a few minutes and glanced around outside the dirty, dusty windows a few times (those that weren't boarded up, at any rate). When I was absolutely sure that no one was going to disturb me and that Lung or Kaiser or Skidmark wasn't about to bust through to door and try to beat me up for whatever reason, I calmed myself down and prepared to get started.

"Okay. Alright, then."

I set my backpack down on the dirty floor — ugh, I was going to have to do some _serious_ washing to get it clean, later — unzipped it, and I pulled out the cheap video camera and tripod I'd bought with my meager savings. Dad hadn't been able to afford to give me much of an allowance in quite a while, but since I wasn't going out with Emma anymore (because she was a total bitch, of course), I hadn't had anything else to really spend what he _did_ give me on.

"And this goes here, like this, and that goes there, and I just push this button like _so_ …"

It took me a few minutes, mostly because I'd never done anything like it before, but eventually, I'd managed to set the cheap video camera atop the tripod and had it aimed out at the largest clear spot on the warehouse floor. I didn't turn it on just yet, though. On the off chance someone managed to get ahold of this thing, I didn't want them to see my real face or my normal, everyday clothes.

"Okay."

I walked out into the clearing and squared my shoulders, taking deep breaths to calm my fluttering stomach. This was the first time I'd be using my powers since I woke up in the hospital, and I really didn't have any idea what to expect.

Vaguely, I could remember the feeling of that first time, in the Locker, of something huge and foreign trying to shove itself into my tiny, human body. I could remember it trying to force me into its shape, could remember the fear and the horror of my self being overwritten by something that was _me_ and yet _not me_ …

In the intervening time, I'd tried to forget what I'd learned, there, the knowledge that had been crammed into my head, and to some degree, I'd been successful. I'd even managed to get excited about my powers and how I had figured they probably worked, because _holy shit_ , this was basically _the_ power of a hero. _Heroes_. Sure, Alexandria and the Triumvirate were still awesome, but when your power was essentially "all the heroes," it was hard to call a flying brick more awe-inspiring.

It just, well, didn't really come with a manual.

That was one of the things I was here to experiment with.

"Ready. Set up."

The words weren't really necessary, and I could have done it without them just as easily, but they helped me focus, a little. Once I'd finished saying them, a brief golden light flashed over my body, and my clothes vanished.

For a moment, I panicked, but when I reached up to preserve my modesty, it was to discover my hands covered in some kind of fabric, and a scant moment after that, my eyes covered by golden lenses. Curiously enough, I could see out of them as though they were clear glass, and it was only later, once I watched the video to see what everything had looked like, that I even realized they were a different color at all.

I saved the inspecting of my costume for later, though — and how cool was it that my power even came with its own _costume_? — and walked back over to the camera to turn it on. I had to fiddle with it a little to start it recording, but after it was all set up and ready, I walked back over into the clearing on the floor and stared into it.

The knowledge had sat in the back of my head, almost unnoticed, since I woke up in the hospital. My power had two modes: one, which I'd taken to calling Installs, was the power to take on the form and abilities of people from myths and legends, down to their equipment and physical traits, and the second, which I'd decided to call Includes, only called upon some signature item or ability.

If I Installed Hercules, for example, (or, as was the proper Greek version, Herakles) I'd shoot up to about seven feet tall, gain about a hundred-and-fifty pounds of muscle, my skin would turn a lead gray color, and I'd find myself dressed in ancient Greek armor, complete with a hardened leather cuirass and that characteristic skirt thing. I'd also get a bow and a sword and a couple of other pieces of equipment.

"Set. Include."

If I Included, on the other hand, I only got a piece of equipment or two. Usually, it was that hero's most famous armament or ability — Noble Phantasm was the term my powers supplied me, a device or technique embodying a hero's deeds and accomplishments. If I Included King Arthur, I'd get Excalibur. If I Included Herakles, I'd get the Shooting Hundred Heads — the skill that embodied the killing of the Lernaean Hydra.

Those were combat based Noble Phantasms, though, and that wasn't what I wanted to test.

Once the Include had finished, I looked down at myself. Nothing had changed. No new piece of equipment, no new weapon or anything like that. At first glance, it must have seemed like it failed.

But it hadn't. What I wanted to test was whether or not I could use Includes to increase my own body's abilities, so that they stayed when I wasn't using my powers directly. I couldn't do that with Installs, and I'd come to that conclusion with simple logic — if I was borrowing the powers and even the physical traits of heroes, then I was obviously borrowing their skills with their weapons, as well (however that actually worked). It wouldn't make sense for me to keep those when my body went back to being boring, regular Taylor Hebert.

That meant, of course, that I couldn't use an Install to teach myself martial arts. I probably couldn't use an Include like that, either; if I was borrowing a piece of equipment like a sword or a spear, I could only imagine that the skill to wield it would come, too, but I'd have to test that later.

However, there _were_ heroes who had made their mark as tutors and teachers, as scholars and learners. If I could Include a hero whose Noble Phantasm was to learn other skills…

I closed my eyes and reached for the power I had borrowed with this Include.

 **Mentoring Great Heroes**  
"Aite Láechrad."

Instantly, I felt the world open up. A myriad of possibilities stretched out before me like a great tree, and upon each branch was a skill that I could make mine, if only I tried. Mathematics, divination, precognition, swordsmanship — which, itself, had so many variants that they seemed uncountable — archery, meditation, surgery, how to conceal one's presence… Endlessly, continuing on out into some grand level that seemed infinite, there existed skills I could learn, if only I tried.

Some, however, would be harder for me. I could feel that I would struggle with an assassin's skills, like how to sneak up on a target, or with medical techniques, or just generally with things that weren't related to direct combat. Even with combat abilities, I knew instinctively that Eastern martial arts, like kung fu or karate, would be harder to learn than their Western counterparts.

In the end, I'd only found a handful of heroes that might fit my criteria. Chiron might have worked, but he was limited — when I'd reached out for him, I'd had the sense that he could only learn skills contemporary to Ancient Greece, which wasn't entirely useless but also wasn't what I'd been looking for. The internet, however, was incredibly useful and had some fairly obscure knowledge, so when Chiron hadn't panned out and I'd gone looking for more teachers in mythology, I'd eventually stumbled onto the Ulster Cycle.

Let me tell you, the ancient Irish were pretty fucked up. So were a lot of the older cultures — did you know that the warriors of Classical Greece slept with their _friends_ and _comrades_ at least as often as their spouses? Don't even get me _started_ on pederasty — but the passages I'd read from _The Wooing of Emer_ online had contained an awful lot of waxing philosophic about how manly Cúchulainn was and how many women he'd fooled around with _while he was training to win Emer's love_.

Fucking Celts.

Anyway, after Chiron fell through, I'd gotten onto the Ulster Cycle, where I found two more legendary teachers: Scáthach and Aífe. Either one of them probably would have fit the bill, but when I read Aífe's passage in the myth, she'd just stood out so much more. A hero who had beaten the protagonist in strength and skill and been defeated only by a cheap trick…

This was the Noble Phantasm I'd chosen to Include. As a warrior and a teacher, Aífe's Noble Phantasm allowed her to learn nearly any skill — with limitations, as I'd just found out — and teach them to others. I wasn't going to be a neurosurgeon anytime soon, but at the very least, I could learn to defend myself outside of my Installs.

I reached out with mental hands and grasped at the skill I wanted: Ancient Celtic Martial Arts. There were other Western skills of similar bent, martial disciplines from all over Europe, including the grappling techniques taught to Greek warriors like the Spartans and different schools of swordsmanship that I'd vaguely heard of, like Liechtenauer, but Aífe was Irish and the Celtic martial arts were the ones she knew best, and so the ones I would learn fastest. Maybe if I needed to, I could branch out later on, but for now, I wanted something I could learn relatively quickly that would also be useful outside of my cape life.

As Aite Láechrad locked in my chosen skill, it provided me with a kind of mental progress bar. I was currently at a flat zero, denoting that I knew absolutely nothing about it, and it went all the way up to…about seven, although there were some strange "halfway" points where it felt like I could specialize and be really good at one aspect while being average at the rest. I didn't want that, though. I wanted to completely _master_ this skill.

So, the first thing I needed to learn was…

 **The Apple Feat.**

Right, and that was…juggling, basically, plus throwing. Aite Láechrad showed me — although "show" wasn't exactly the right term; it was more like it just dumped the information directly into my head — that the objective was to develop hand-eye coordination and train your ability to aim properly.

I looked around the warehouse, but it was an old, abandoned warehouse; _of course_ it didn't have any fresh apples sitting around, just waiting for me to use, so I had to make do with bits of rubble and concrete that were scattered all over the floor. I found three good-sized chunks that were about as big as an apple, walked back into the center of the clearing, and, feeling a bit stupid and clownish, I started juggling.

I must have gone at it for an hour or two, just tossing them around and juggling like an idiot. Sometimes, I dropped them — especially within the first few minutes; if my power hadn't given me some kind of energy shield, my toes would've been broken a dozen times over — because I'd never juggled before in my life, but I just picked them back up when that happened and kept going. In my head, that progress bar slowly began to fill, and as it did, I thought that it was getting easier to juggle and easier to keep track of the bits of rubble.

It might just have been my imagination, though.

After those two hours, however, it started to get boring. Well, okay, it was basically boring from the beginning, but I managed to force myself to do it for the whole two hours, and I had to stop because my fingers were starting to go numb. So, making sure to catch those bits of rubble, I set them down out of the way; next time, if this actually worked, I'd bring a few apples to use.

"Okay. What else, then?"

I examined that progress bar to find that I was still basically a novice, I was just a slightly better novice. I wouldn't be punching out Lung anytime soon, but I was in somewhat better shape than when I'd started.

Next, however, was something called the **Salmon Leap**. I could remember vaguely the description of it in _The Wooing of Emer_ , and the impression I'd gotten then and now was of something similar to what you saw in some of the more intense break dancing (Emma had always enjoyed that sort of thing more than I had). The idea was to leap straight up into the air; the higher you got, the better you were at it, and when you could do a full flip in midair, you'd mastered it.

I hoped that this would be worth it, in the end, because right now, it seemed like my power was conspiring to embarrass me as much as possible.

My first jump was pathetic, and it served to show me exactly how pudgy and out of shape I was. A gradeschooler probably would have done better than I did. My second jump wasn't much better, and to be quite frank, to realize exactly where I was, and then to have it reinforced by how slowly that mental progress bar was filling, was really disheartening.

Sophia could probably have done it with ease.

That thought was what wound up motivating me. Sophia was infinitely better at this than I was? Then I was going to sur-fucking-pass her, even if it killed me.

My next several jumps weren't much less anemic than the first few, but they were much, much more motivated. I refused to give up. I refused to let myself be outpaced in regards to my own power by one of the girls who was making my life miserable. There was nothing that was going to keep me from going until I mastered this.

Except, it turned out, exhaustion. About an hour later, with several breaks interspersed in between, I finally had to stop jumping — my legs felt like they were on fire, and everything below my waist had started to go numb. My lungs, meanwhile, burned for oxygen, and even my arms, which had flailed about, were starting to feel the strain.

As I collapsed to the floor, however, panting like a dog in the middle of summer, and I turned my attention to my progress, I felt my heart skip a beat: one third. It wasn't exactly halfway, nor was it one of those milestones that marked my proficiency, but it was good enough. At this rate, I was going to reach that first marker in three days — maybe less, as my fitness improved and my body became even more used to the stress I was putting it under.

Every weekend, I decided right then. Every weekend, I was going to come out here and practice these Ancient Celtic Martial Arts, and I was going to keep going until I mastered them. Every Saturday and Sunday, without fail, I was going to come out to this abandoned warehouse, and I was going to go through these exercises, and nothing was going to stop me.

No, actually, forget about just that. I wasn't just going to come out on the weekends and practice, I was going to start running, get in shape. I'd have to start slow and careful, but eventually, I was going to be going for a run every weekday morning. If it worked out the way I thought it would, it would make it easier and faster for me to master the skills of this martial arts school. If it didn't, then at least I'd be in better shape, which would hopefully mean getting rid of that little paunch I had on my belly.

I had to laugh. Splayed out there in the dirt and the grime, sweaty and dusty and out of breath, I had to laugh a deep, echoing laugh. I felt giddy and happy and excited, and even though I had pushed myself almost to exhaustion, I wanted to get up and keep going, and I felt like I could take on the whole world.

My stomach rumbled.

Eh…maybe after I'd had lunch, first?

After I'd cooled down a little and my legs didn't feel like they would collapse out from under me if I tried to stand, I pulled myself to my feet, took a moment to concentrate, and let go of Aífe's Noble Phantasm. The progress bar sitting in the back of my head vanished, but I could still remember clearly how the Apple Feat and the Salmon Leap were performed. It seemed, in my base Breaker form, at least, the skills had stayed behind.

"Release."

Another moment of focus was all it took to drop out of my base Breaker form and become regular, ordinary Taylor Hebert once again. I looked down at my hands — they didn't look any different, any stronger, any more dexterous than they'd been when I woke up that morning.

I walked over to where I'd set those pieces of rubble down, then I hefted them up and started juggling. Effortlessly, as though I'd been born to do it, I handled them, tossing them up into the air, catching them, swapping them between my hands. Yesterday, I would have fumbled like a newborn.

For the rest of the day, I wore a smile, and nothing could bring me down.

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

 **As always, read, review, and enjoy.**

 **And for early access to chapters and bonus content:**

 **p a treon . com (slash) James_D_Fawkes**


	10. Disillusion 2-1

**Disillusion 2.1**

[The four cardinal gates close.]

One of the first things I'd tested my power on was my bed.

The actual first was a pencil, which I'd turned into a multi-function utensil whose tip never dulled and whose eraser undid mistakes by _literally_ undoing them. Even now, one of my classmates had in his possession a pencil that would last him his entire life, provided he didn't snap it in half at any point. The guy probably had no idea that he'd picked up my first ever experiment, and likely, he never would. Even if I knew where that pencil had gotten off to, _I_ certainly wasn't about to tell him.

Later on, after trying a few different ideas on other innocuous, everyday items (including an unfortunate run-in with our toaster), I'd gotten around to changing my bed. It wasn't a rocket ship or anything — even if I'd gotten a handle on what I could do, those were still the early days, after all, when I hadn't quite figured out my limits — but I had managed to enhance it based upon its intended function.

In other words, sleep.

I was incredibly grateful for my foresight when I woke up the day after my encounter with Lung, feeling well-rested and as refreshed as though I'd gotten a full, uninterrupted eight hours of sleep. That was the effect I'd placed on my bed, you see: though I hadn't bothered to test it to find out the exact number, it healed and rejuvenated the body and mind the same as a full night's sleep with just a few hours. I thought it was probably three, because my various caster types tended to agree that three was an important number.

So, as I slung my arm over and shut off my alarm clock, I had to smile into my pillow. Not only had I woken up feeling like I'd slept in on a Saturday, but the giddy sense of pride was still tickling at the insides of my stomach. If I'd been the girl I was five years ago, I might've giggled and laughed and shouted.

But that girl had been killed and buried by her best friend.

"Ah, geez, Taylor," I groaned. "You just _had_ to bring the mood down, didn't you?"

Today was a Monday. Monday meant school. School meant my own personal trio of tormentors, headed by my former best friend, backed by a mousy sycophant, and enforced by the Track star who gave even the most stereotypical of jocks a bad name.

Friday was juice all over me and my bag. What would they dream up this time?

"No," I told myself quietly. I forced myself to sit up, letting my blankets fall from my shoulders, and gave myself a stiff slap to the face. "No. You beat Lung. You took down the scariest villain in the city. The Trio is _nothing_ compared to that."

It was enough to rally me, and with a little of the pride and confidence last night had instilled in me, I rolled out of bed and slid into a pair of sweats. Then, I made my way down to the kitchen, grabbing my shoes along the way, and took a seat at the table. I was halfway through pulling them on when Dad came downstairs in his bathrobe and a set of worn, old slippers — I rarely saw them, so it took me a moment to remember that they were the last present Mom had ever gotten him for Christmas.

"Good morning, kiddo," he greeted me as he entered. On his way past me, he leaned down and pressed a kiss to my head.

For one panicked second, I was afraid he'd smell the burnt asphalt or something, but when he went on his way without comment, I silently released the breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding.

"Morning, Dad."

"You sound like you're in a good mood," he said. "That excited to go on your run?"

"Just…slept really well, last night," I replied. It was even true. "Had a good dream, too. I was beating up Lung."

Dad let out a startled laugh as he was putting the bacon on, and I had to smother my own grin. Dad hadn't laughed much, ever since Mom died. If I was honest, I hadn't, either, but that had as much to do with Emma's betrayal as it did with the big Mom-shaped hole in my life.

"What?"

"Old school knight style," I told him. When he turned to me, I held out one hand as though I was wielding a sword. "Have at thee, foul dragon!"

I made some exaggerated motions with my wrist that, even without Siegfried in my head, I knew were all flash and no substance. It still evoked the image of stabbing and slashing, though.

"Did you beat him?" Dad asked, grinning.

"Like a cheap drum." I couldn't stop some of the pride I was feeling from entering my voice.

"Good for you," he said, turning back to breakfast.

I ached to tell him. Not for the first time, I thought about it. Really considered it. Just…put it out there. _Hey, Dad, I have powers._

But I bit my tongue. I was used to hiding things from Dad, and this was just one more thing that I absolutely couldn't tell him. He worried enough about me going on my runs, about the fact that I didn't seem to have any friends (and I didn't), about how terrible things were for the Dockworkers, about our financial difficulties, and I just didn't want to worry him with my powers. At the end of the day, it was the same reason I hadn't told him that the bullying had never stopped: it was just more to pile onto his already full plate.

"Could you get the OJ?"

"Sure," I said.

I headed into the fridge and pulled out the orange juice, grabbing a tiny carton of applesauce while I was there — one of those small, single-serve things supermarkets sold by the half-dozen. Dad had already moved onto the French toast by the time I got back to the table and procured a spoon for myself. The sweet smell of cinnamon and the heady scent of hickory-smoked bacon tickled my nose.

"You remember Gerry?" Dad asked over his shoulder.

"Not really," I said as I tore open my applesauce.

"You met him once or twice while you were visiting me at work. Big guy, burly, Black Irish?"

"Doesn't ring a bell," I answered around my spoon.

If I was being completely honest, I couldn't really remember anyone from Dad's work except Kurt and Lacey. For one thing, it'd been a while since I'd been anywhere near the Dockworkers HQ, or even my Dad's office, and for another, I hadn't really known any of them that well to begin with. There was no way to avoid empathizing with their employment difficulties — my dad was head of hiring, after all, and it was basically his job to tell everyone that there were no jobs to be had, in this economy — but I couldn't really put a face to any of the names he mentioned whenever he started talking about them.

"Huh. Well, anyway, there's a rumor going around that he's found work. Take a guess who with."

"I give up. Who?"

"He's signed up as one of Über and Leet's henchmen."

I snorted. "What, really?"

"That's the scuttlebutt," Dad said.

"I guess they'll make him wear some crazy uniform? Like Tron or Zelda or something?"

Dad chuckled. "Probably. Could you imagine a guy that big in a dress?"

I couldn't — or at least, not Gerry specifically — but the image of a big, heavy black man stuffed into a bright pink dress was still ridiculous enough to make me laugh as I helped myself to the first batch of French toast.

Dad sat down at the table a few moments later, carrying with him the rest of the French toast and the bacon, and for a couple of minutes, we just ate in companionable silence. A father and his daughter eating breakfast together — not quite the way it should be, because there was still one person missing, but it was closer than it had been for a while.

When I was done, I stood up and took my plate over to the sink to be washed, grabbing a slice of bacon on my way. I felt more than saw Dad's head swivel around to follow me.

"You…going on your run, then?"

"Yeah."

"Ah." Dad had never been particularly happy about my morning routine, but aside some token resistance, he never actually tried to stop me, either. "You, uh, got the, uh…"

"I've got my pepper spray, yeah," I said.

What I didn't tell him was that I'd long since upgraded it to disrupt the retinal function of any idiot who actually wound up on the other end of it. It might make him feel a bit better, but then I'd have to explain _how_.

Dad gave me a nod of acknowledgement, as though satisfied, but I was his daughter, and even if we hadn't been as close as we were before Mom died, I still knew him well enough to catch the undercurrent of anxiety he tried to hide.

I gave him a quick hug on my way back, felt him relax a little, then left out the side door and took off.

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

There was a tight feeling in my belly as I made my way to homeroom, that morning. I felt unprepared, blindsided, to handle school and everything that came with it after having fought and beaten Lung just a few short hours before. It probably said something that I was less sure of myself and felt so much weaker in a school filled with dumb, petty teenagers than I did in a life or death battle against one of the most powerful parahumans in the Bay.

None of it good, of course.

As I got into homeroom, however, and Mrs. Knott looked up and gave me a tight smile, I remembered that I _had_ skipped out on the last two classes of the day on Friday. Sure, I'd turned in my midterm project, and sure, I'd written a note explaining my absence, but if kids could do that and get away with it, a lot more of my classmates would be absent a lot more often. Someone would probably be coming down from the office with a notice or a note from the principal or something, single me out in front of the entire class, and then, the cycle embarrassment would come full circle and be complete.

Something hot and angry and indignant burned suddenly inside of me, and for a moment, I _wanted_ someone to come down from the office, calling me to see Blackwell, so that I could unload on her all of the problems and the reasons _why_ I had felt it necessary to leave in the middle of the day on Friday. I _wanted_ to stand up for myself, to give everyone who looked down on me a tongue-lashing for standing there and offering platitudes rather than _doing_ something about the bullying.

But I forced myself to swallow that vitriol and take my seat at my computer. Fortunately, neither my homeroom nor my first class of the day had any of the Trio in it, and though it _did_ have a few of their hangers-on, none of _them_ cared enough to do anything to me when Emma, Sophia, and Madison weren't around to watch and laugh.

So, I sat down and booted up the ancient desktop, watching as it cycled through the OS logo and a loading screen or two. It said something about Winslow, too, that these desktops were probably fifteen years out of date and _painfully_ slow.

Once it had gotten through the startup process, though, the first thing I did was complete the project for the day, just to have it done. It took all of about fifteen minutes, tops, and then I had the rest of the time until class ended to do whatever I wanted while Mrs. Knott managed the computer illiterates that made up most of the rest of the class.

With that project done, though, I turned my focus onto something I'd been anxiously wondering about and logged onto Parahumans Online — PHO — to check out the News subsection and see if I'd made the headlines.

 **LUNG CAPTURED!** was the name of the first thread in the section. **NEWBIE HERO SHUTS HIM DOWN!**

Filled with a kind of giddy excitement, I clicked on the thread and leaned forward to read.

[]

 **Topic: LUNG CAPTURED - NEWBIE HERO SHUTS HIM DOWN**

 **In: Boards ► News ► Events ►America**

 **Bagrat** (Original Poster) (Veteran Member) (The Guy in the Know)  
Posted On Apr 12th 2011:

This just in — Brockton Bay's fire-breathing boogeyman just got his clock cleaned, and is stewing in a Protectorate holding cell.

Now, I heard this all from a buddy in the PRT, so there are some things he CAN'T say, and some might be corrected later, when he gets up from his well-deserved after-shift coma.

EDIT - like the cape's costume. Updated the description, please read carefully, and try not to make fun of the people who thought she was a Case 53. The first draft really was that bad, and my contact really was THAT tired.

Late last night, around 1 AM, Armsmaster called in transport for one parahuman prisoner. A standard escort, plus Miss Militia, showed up to find Lung's comatose torso lying on the ground, in the wreckage of what was once Mason Street. They Foamed him, threw him in the back of the truck, and rode off uneventfully.

Armsmaster isn't the one taking credit for the capture, though. That honor goes to a new cape - as in, first-night-out-ever new - by the name of Apocrypha. She's kinda tall, apparently. Teenager or young woman, so maybe we'll be getting a new Ward? Long, dark hair. Pretty good costume, too. Real professional looking. Lots of purple, especially the mask, the pants, and the vest she wears. Speaking of, apparently the vest has a pair of tails, an homage to the classical cape, maybe? Gold trim, like, everywhere. Black boots and a skintight bodysuit. For a newbie, she's seriously got her stuff together.

No word yet on exactly what her powers are, but considering what she's done - bolostomping the real-life equivalent of a Raid Boss with minimal collateral, no injuries, and zero backup - we're looking at a top-tier cape. She's been described as 'friendly' towards the PRT, again, no word on where that'll lead.

[]

If I was honest, I was impressed by his level of detail. He didn't have everything, of course, like what my powers were and how far Lung had transformed, because those were things I'd only mentioned to Armsmaster and Miss Militia, but he got a lot of things right, and the finite minutiae about my costume read like he'd dissected a photograph of me wearing it.

All things considered, I was almost surprised that he hadn't linked a grainy cellphone video of the fight, complete with me-as-Siegfried swinging around that massive sword as though it were a toy.

I scrolled down and started to read the responses.

[]

 **(Showing page 1 of 213)**

► **NamelessWalnut**  
Replied On Apr 12th 2011:  
Bagrat, I normally trust you, but man, if this is someone's idea of a joke…

I mean, really? A newbie took down Lung? There's no way.

► **Stranger_Danger**  
Replied On Apr 12th 2011:  
Wait, so are you saying that a newbie beat Mister Big Scary Rage Dragon, with barely minimum effort?  
Wow, for once, something good is happening in Brockton.

► **Beachwyld**  
Replied On Apr 12th 2011:  
Seriously? Scariest villain in Brockton Bay, and he got taken down by a complete noob?

► **SilverHat**  
Replied On Apr 12th 2011:  
You're telling me there was an epic fight against Lung where he was defeated and half the city didn't go up in flames? I call BS.

► **Ossified Hippo**  
Replied On Apr 12th 2011:  
Isn't that the guy who fought Leviathan to a standstill in Kyushu? How'd a rookie beat _that_?

► **Bagrat** (Original Poster) (Veteran Member) (The Guy in the Know)  
Replied On Apr 12th 2011:  
Very badly, apparently. Nobody's talking about the _how_ , but my guy on the inside tells me that Lung was carted away missing his arms and legs. No pictures on that, but the description I was given was, 'as though they had been burned off by a really hot flame.'

[]

For several pages, they went on and on, expressing disbelief and asking questions about how a newbie could take down someone like Lung. Once those were out of the way, though, and people had stopped doubting the possibility, the tone of the comments changed.

[]

 **(Showing page 7 of 215)**

► **King_Of_Nothing**  
Replied On Apr 12th 2011:  
Wait wait wait, you guys are sitting here telling me that Lung, the guy who had a battle so fucking epic that it sunk an island _just by happening in the vicinity_ , wasin a fight that had him MELTING concrete through the entire street? AND HE LOST?  
 _  
_I for one welcome our new Overlord, move over Eidolon.

► **SiderealFantasy**  
Replied On Apr 12th 2011:  
This girl took down Lung. If I see her in real life, I'm gonna bow down and kiss her feet.

► **BlueRider**  
Replied On Apr 12th 2011:  
2BorNot2B  
An obscure, nerdy, edgy one IMO, but hey, the dear lass beat FREAKING LUNG! She can call herself Miss Boldy McDragonChewer and I am still going to build her a freaking altar!

► **ChilledRoyal**  
Replied On Apr 12th 2011:  
All hail Apocrypha, slayer of the Dragon of Brockton Bay!

► **Ossified Hippo**  
Replied On Apr 12th 2011:  
Well, hell. Slather me in butter and call me lunch. If this is legit, I'd definitely be willing to worship at that alter BlueRider is building.

[]

On and on, they went. It seemed like everyone and their grandmother had come out of the woodwork to say something, from expressing disbelief, to fear about retaliation, to congratulating me, and even to make fun of Lung for losing to a "little girl."

And each post singing my praises was like a jolt to my ego; every one of them sent that feeling of tickling pride in my stomach aflutter, and within five minutes, my cheeks were hurting from where I'd had to bite down on them to keep from smiling. Maybe I wasn't on Cloud Nine, but I was definitely pretty damn close.

Validation, after nearly two years without it. Each time I read one of those posts congratulating Apocrypha, congratulating _me_ , I was back there, standing beside Armsmaster and Miss Militia, and they were smiling at me and telling me that I'd done a good job. I was a _hero_ , and I had something now that Emma and her two cronies could _never_ take away from me.

It wasn't all nice, of course. Some people were looking at it and coming up with all sorts of theories about me and my motivations.

[]

 **(Showing page 97 of 221)**

► **SilverHat**  
Replied On Apr 12th 2011:  
TheConjurer  
I agree that a simple Brute wouldn't last against Lung, but I think you're going in the wrong direction here. Lung went against an _Endbringer_ and survived, you can't best him with brute strength. So I am betting he was _mastered_ into hurting himself, _if he was defeated at all_. This could as easily be a sham to hide something else.

► **YellowDeath**  
Replied On Apr 12th 2011:  
Silverhat  
Hell, how do we know this chick isn't an Empire recruit playing nice with the heroes? Maybe she's a plant they're trying to get into the Wards? More likely than her beating Lung on her own, at least.

► **RedRonin 708**  
Replied On Apr 12th 2011:  
Stranger_Danger  
IDK man this is Brockton Bay were talking about, even with Lung gone things are still gonna go bad. I mean have any of you actually thought about what this could actually do to the gang situation. Without Lung ABB is gonna be under a lot of pressure. This is really gonna suck for those of us who are Asian and live in ABB territory. I mean don't get me wrong hated paying those assholes protection money, but I'd rather deal with them then those Neo-Nazi fuckers or the goddamn Merchants.

YellowDeath  
God, I hope she isn't. Speaking of the PRT and the Wards if does decide to join them I just hope they finally get off their asses and do something!

King_Of_Nothing  
You do realize that this city is essentially the Nazi movement capital for the entire east coast right? That brings up another thought if she doesn't join PRT the new cape is gonna have to be really careful. I mean she could probably take care of herself, but forced recruitment is still a thing. Just hope she doesn't get picked up by a group like the 9.

SaladDancer  
Just you wait. New cape, new problems. I'm just thankful that the city is still here for now.

► **King_Of_Nothing**  
Replied On Apr 12th 2011:  
YellowDeath  
Try not to be such a conspiracy nut mate, have some hope that not everything is nazis.

► **TimeWolf**  
Replied On Apr 12th 2011:  
I find it really hard to believe that some new cape managed to take out Lung while he had grown that much, let alone on their first night out. Capes that powerful are _rare_ and those powerful enough to take out Lung while he was that powerful with minimal experience are rarer still. While it could really be a new cape, I find it much more likely that this is simply a more experienced cape trying to rebrand or something. Does anybody know of any capes who could have done this who disappeared recently?

Also, does anybody have any ideas on how Lung got that powerful and _then_ was defeated? It seems unlikely that someone would suddenly become more capable of defeating him after he grew. My best guess is that someone else engaged him first, and then Apocrypha showed up. Does anyone have any better ideas?

► **RedRonin 708**  
Replied On Apr 12th 2011:  
Stranger_Danger  
Hmm I think I know him. Not irl, but did he write that one slash-fic about Armsmaster and Dauntless in the back of a PRT van?

Time Wolf  
I heard rumors that Lung was with a bunch of his soldiers before Apocrypha showed up. Apparently, they were taken out by a pretty large group then Apocrypha threw down with Lung. Could be this Apocrypha isn't really a new hero, but a new gang leader.

 **(Showing page 120 of 230)**

► **Antigone**  
Replied On Apr 12th 2011:  
Everyone seems to be missing a key fact - she soloed LUNG.

It doesn't even matter how bad things get. As soon as she shows up, everyone else has to run for the hills.

Hey, Villains of the Bay? GG, guys. You had a good run.

And now it's time to go.

[]

It was a good feeling, having so much support from so many total strangers. I got so caught up in all the praise and adulation that I lost track of time, and when the bell rang signaling the end of class, I had to hurry up and log off so I could make it on time to my next one. As I ran along, my mind cycling between those comments and the scene from the night before, I thought that there was no way the Trio could possibly ruin this day for me.

They proved me wrong in less than an hour.

Mister Gladly's World Affairs class was one I shared with Madison Clements, Unrepentant Bitch Number Three, and she was already there and in her seat by the time I arrived. A pair of girls whose names I didn't know — most of the hangers-on were so interchangeable that I had never bothered to learn them all — were huddled around her desk, and the three of them glanced at me and broke out into giggles the moment they saw me.

I found out why not thirty seconds later: Madison had poured orange juice on my chair.

Bitch.

I wanted to throw a glare her way to let her know exactly how unimpressed I was by her, but I forced my focus away from her and found myself an empty seat a couple back from my usual spot. No matter how good it might have felt to send her that glare, in the end, it would just come back to bite me.

 _Just ignore them, Taylor,_ I told myself. _You're a hero. Nothing they do can touch you, now._

Mister Gladly came in a few minutes after the second bell rang, then spent another few minutes trying to get class started. That was the problem with trying to be the popular teacher, and one of the reasons I thought he was kind of pathetic and useless: when you were the guy everyone liked and you tried to always be that guy, your teenage students had no respect for you. I couldn't even remember when the last time was that I'd seen him give a detention.

Once he'd gotten everything under control, or at least the illusion thereof, the next thing he did was order us to break off into groups of four and share our homework with each other. Then, later on, each group was to share their work with the rest of the class, and the group that won would get the prize he had mentioned at the end of last week: treats from the vending machines.

I didn't even bother trying to find a good group; most of them consisted of friends and cliques huddling together, and I wasn't welcome in any of them, if I'd ever been so inclined to try. Instead, I meandered over to Sparky and Greg, the leftovers who no one had wanted to team up with. In this class, at least, they and I had worked together before, if only because no one else was willing to let us into their groups. Greg started talking almost the moment I sat down, but I mostly just ignored him.

I grabbed my share of the homework out of my new backpack — actually my old one, just cleaned with magic and the color altered so that none of the Trio suspected anything amiss — without a word. Everything was written in ink, using the pen I had improved similarly to that pencil, so that if it got stolen, none of Madison's flunkies could just erase my name and claim it was theirs.

I'd _wanted_ to include a trap, something that made fun of someone trying to tamper with it, like that map in the _Harry Potter_ books, but that would have been too blatant and outed me. Petty revenge just wasn't worth the hassle it'd bring.

"— distracted by this new game," Greg was saying. "It's called Space Opera —"

I tuned him out again. Greg wasn't a bad guy, I had to admit, but he didn't seem to have any filter between his brain and his mouth, and his social skills seemed even more stunted than mine were. That stereotype, about guys not being able to take a hint? Greg _embodied_ it.

"— hey, Julia!"

I blinked and turned to look at where Greg was waving (with _way_ too much enthusiasm; _I_ was embarrassed, just sitting next to him), and there was one of Madison's flunkies, Julia, coming into class late.

Mister Gladly, of course, didn't give her anything than a kindly worded warning. Nevermind that she was stepping into class almost fifteen minutes after it started. Of course not — as long as he never _actually_ punished anyone, he could keep being the cool teacher.

"Can I be in Madison's group?" she asked him.

"That wouldn't be fair," Mister Gladly said. "Greg's group only has three people. Go join them."

I almost expected her to argue or whine — Mister Gladly was flimsier than wet bread — but she came over to where my group and I were sitting without complaint and made a face, like she'd smelled something particularly disgusting. Before she sat down, she muttered, "Ew," just loud enough for us to hear.

 _The feeling's mutual, Julia._

Of course, that was the beginning of the end. I could smell the disaster coming a mile away, even if I didn't know what it would be, because Madison's group decided to move and sit down right next to ours, which let Julia chat it up with them while still technically being part of ours. It put all of the popular and attractive girls in the class within spitting distance.

That only made Greg worse. Instead of prattling on about his video games to me, he kept trying to join in on their conversation, no matter how many times those girls ignored him or told him to butt out. Maybe I didn't really have room to talk, considering I was a social pariah and all, but it was really kind of pathetic.

So saying, my grade was already abysmal and suffering from the Trio's sabotage. If I could help it, I shouldn't let this sort of thing bring it down even further.

"Greg," I said, attempting to grab his attention, "here's what I did over the weekend. What do you think?"

I handed him all of my work, and in hindsight, that was a terrible idea. At the very least, though, he _did_ actually read it, when someone else might have just glanced through it and offered an empty platitude. When he was done, he looked back at me with a smile he probably thought was charming.

"This is really good, Taylor," he said sincerely.

"Let me see," said Julia, and before I could stop him, Greg handed all of my hard work over to her without a second's thought or hesitation. I watched as she skimmed through it, already knowing what was going to happen, and then she tossed it over to Madison's table, where a couple of the girls broke out into giggles.

Something burned inside me. _Idiot_ , I wanted to shout at Greg. _Idiot_ , I wanted to shout at myself, for letting it happen.

"Give that back," I said, trying to keep my tone level and even.

Letting them know how much they'd pissed me off would just give them more fuel.

"Give what back?" Julia asked with sugary innocence.

" _Madison_ ," I spat her name like a curse, ignoring Julia entirely, "give it back."

Madison turned to me, face twisting into an expression of such disdain that it could have curdled milk all on its own, and in a condescending tone that would have reduced a Miss America winner or an Olympic gold medalist to tears, said, "Nobody's talking to you, Taylor."

I had some choice words for her, but they wouldn't have done anything, so I held them back. Maybe, in another, better school, I could have gone to the teacher about it, but this was Winslow, hive of scum and villainy, where all the poor kids, stupid kids, and gangsters went to school. Telling the teacher wouldn't have solved anything — would have made it worse, actually.

And as much as I wanted to, I couldn't Install Medea and turn Madison into a toad.

That was about the time that Greg realized how badly he screwed up, and though I made a few attempts to salvage the mess he'd made, I had to give it up as a bad job, because every time he opened his mouth, it was to either make an apology or beg Madison's group to give my work back. All he accomplished was to annoy me and waste away the rest of our time.

When it came time to present, Mister Gladly started picking out people from each of the groups to stand up and go over their work. As was my luck, when it was our group's turn, he picked Greg, and Greg wasn't really all that good at public speaking. He messed up so badly that Mister Gladly actually asked him to sit down before he finished.

As for why Mister Gladly had picked Greg in the first place, I had no idea. It wasn't like Greg had done much better with our other group work the previous times.

Then, of course, I had to sit there and stew as Madison got up and recited _my_ much more impressive list of ways capes had affected the world. She went over it all — fashion, economics, technology, media — and the only part she really flubbed on was law enforcement.

In the end, another group was chosen as the winners, if only for the sheer number of things they'd listed off in their presentation. The worst part, though, was having to listen as Mister Gladly praised Madison's group and assured them that it had been a _very near thing_ , just based upon the _quality_.

 _My work_ , that _Madison_ had stolen and taken credit for. Who gave a damn about the vending machine treats? What had me steamed was that all of that hard work had been _basically_ for nothing, and _Madison_ got to claim it as hers.

It was almost impossible to focus on Mister Gladly as he lectured. The anger boiling inside of me made my head swim, and as though they had been called, all of those berserkers that had offered themselves up on Friday offered themselves again. They were as tempting now as they were then, but _damn it_ , I was a _hero_. I'd beaten _Lung_. I wasn't going to let a bunch of pubescent _girls_ ruin that.

To get my mind off of it, I called up some of my other heroes — ones that had been on my list, but who I hadn't taken the time to inspect in detail, yet — and I spent the rest of class examining them and their legends. I got so deep into that, before I knew it, the bell was ringing, and I blinked as it jerked me out of my thoughts.

Everyone else had already packed up, so I was one of the last to put my things away, and as I was shoving my books into my backpack, Mister Gladly approached me and quietly told me, "I'd like you to stick around for a few minutes, please."

I was still a little angry, so I wanted to tell him where he could shove it, but I just swallowed any retorts and gave him a nod to show I understood.

I was left to wait, hanging around awkwardly in the middle of the classroom as Mister Gladly negotiated with the winners of his little contest. I felt a little flash of resentment at them — irrational and misplaced, maybe, but I was probably going to be sore about my stolen work for the rest of the afternoon.

When it was finally just me and him left in the classroom, he cleared his throat a little and said, "I'm not stupid, you know."

"O…kay…"

I wasn't sure how to respond to that.

"I'm not blind to everything that goes on in my classroom," he went on. The acidic retort on the tip of my tongue came very close to telling him exactly how wrong he was. "I don't know exactly who, but I know some people are giving you a pretty hard time."

"Sure," I replied blandly, for lack of anything else to say.

"I saw the mess left on your usual seat today." _Then why didn't you do anything about it?_ I wanted to ask. In Arcadia, class probably wouldn't have started until the teacher got the culprit to confess. "I remember a few weeks back when glue was smeared all over your desk and chair. There was also that incident that happened at the start of the year. All of your teachers had a meeting about that."

 _A fat lot of good that did me_ , I couldn't help thinking. I yearned to say it, to just put it out there, but I held my tongue. Holding my tongue was always easier in the long run.

"And I'm guessing there's more that I don't know about?"

I thought about the juice thing on Friday. About the little shoves in the hallways, about Emma's barbs, veiled as gossip and explained away as, "Oh, of _course_ we weren't talking about Taylor!" About the stolen assignments, the sabotaged projects, and the flute that had been snatched right out of my locker.

"Yeah."

Some part of me dared to hope, dared to believe that it could all stop, right here. But the rest of me already knew how this story ended, and it wasn't with Mister Gladly saving the day.

"I asked you after the glue incident. I'm asking you again. Would you be willing to go to the office with me, talk to the principal and vice principal?"

"What would happen?" I asked shrewdly.

Because in Winslow, good didn't triumph over evil. The bad guy wasn't defeated. The hero didn't ride off into the sunset on a white horse.

"We'd have a discussion about what's been going on," he told me. "You would name the person or people you believe responsible, and each of them would be called in to talk to the principal, in turn."

"And they'd get expelled?"

The answer was no, of course. Emma, Sophia, and Madison were too slippery to be beaten like that.

Mister Gladly shook his head. "If there was enough proof, they would be suspended for a few days, unless they've done something very serious." _Like the Locker?_ "Further offenses could lead to longer suspensions or expulsion."

I felt my lips pull into a mirthless grin. The cynical side of me crowed its victory. "Great. So if I can actually prove they did anything at all, they _might_ miss a couple of days of school, which they'll use to plan whatever revenge they can cook up to punish me for tattling."

Because _that_ was _totally_ what I wanted: a short reprieve followed by more escalation.

 _No thank you_.

"If you want things to get better, Taylor, you have to start somewhere," he told me somberly.

"That's not a starting point, that's shooting myself in the foot right before the race."

I slung my backpack over my shoulder, and when Mister Gladly didn't say anything else, I turned and left the classroom, feeling even more frustrated than before because of his half-hearted attempts to "help" me.

And, of course, by the time I got out and into the hall, Madison had been joined by Emma, Sophia, and about half a dozen other girls, and they were standing there, waiting for me.

I tried to push past them, escape before things even got started, but they'd gotten trapping me down to an art form. It would almost have been impressive, how quickly and easily they herded me into a corner and against the window, if I hadn't been the one they were doing it to. Instead, all it managed to do was send a sharp jolt to the frustration that Mister Gladly had just gotten done stoking.

"Nobody likes her. Nobody wants her here," said Julia, starting them off.

"Such a loser. I hear she's failing all of her classes," Sophia chimed in.

"If she's not going to try, then why is she even coming to school?"

It was all standard fare. More of the same. This was actually the sort of thing they did most; pranks like the juice on Friday were less common than a shove in the hallway or this… _this_ that they were doing, now. It had actually gotten kind of boring and stupid — save for a rare few things that actually hurt, most of their comments were either old material, recycled and reformatted, or else so contradictory that they were almost funny.

The part that had me waiting, the part that had me just a little worried, was that Emma was the only one staying quiet. She was just standing there, the slightest of smiles curling at the corner of her lips, like she was waiting for the opportune moment to slip in and deliver the finishing blow. It was Emma, my ex-best friend, so it was absolutely going to be devastating.

 _No_ , I told myself, mustering an iron-willed determination. _I'm a hero, now. Nothing she says can take that away._

"Ugliest girl in our grade," one of them said. It just washed off of me, like that knowledge, that surety that I had something they could never tarnish, was a set of armor that shielded me. Even the comments that might have hurt fell uselessly against it.

"What does she use to wash her face? A Brillo pad?"

"She should! She'd look better!"

"Never talks to anybody. Maybe she knows she sounds like a retard and keeps her mouth shut."

"No, she's not that smart."

Behind them, I caught sight of Mister Gladly leaving his classroom. None of the girls seemed to notice, so their spiel continued on as I watched him tuck a stack of folders under his arm and lock the door.

"If I were her, I'd kill myself," one of the girls announced.

Mister Gladly turned around, and there was no doubt he could hear what they were saying, and his eyes met mine.

"So glad we don't have gym with her. Can you imagine having to look at her in the locker room? Gag me with a spoon."

In a better world, in a better school, that would have been the moment when I was saved. But this was Winslow, and I was the quiet, unpopular girl being bullied by the top bitch in our grade and her gaggle of friends. Less than five minutes ago, Mister Gladly had been trying to get me to tell the principal about the very bullying that was happening before his eyes, and now, he just gave me a sad, resigned look, adjusted the folders in his hands, then turned and walked away.

I wanted to be surprised. I wanted to be shocked that he'd just abandoned me like that. How could there be such a poor excuse for a teacher when I'd met a genuine hero last night? Not even just one, but _two_. In a city with Armsmaster and Miss Militia, how could there be someone so unwilling to do the right thing?

I wasn't surprised, though. No one had done anything about the Locker, except bribe my dad and I with hospital bills and pay lip service to the promise nothing like it would happen again. Why would now be different?

"You should have seen her group fail in class just now. It was painful to watch."

 _That_ hit a bit of a nerve, but I just reinforced my fortitude with more assurances of my worth. I was a hero. They couldn't take that away.

"And she smells," said one girl. It lacked the oomph any of the others might have had.

"Like expired grape and orange juice," Madison added, laughing a little.

Finally, though, it seemed like they were winding down. I breathed an internal sigh of relief; it wouldn't be long before they gave it up and left, and then I could go eat in peace.

Now, however, as though she had noticed the assault begin to wither and die, Emma stepped forward, and the group parted around her like she was some messiah come to deliver them.

"What's the matter, Taylor?" Emma asked. "You look upset."

It felt weak. It had no punch to it, no pizzazz, none of the sting and barb her usual insults and comments had. It felt like there was another shoe that had to drop, but I wasn't about to let her have it, if I could stop her, so I opened my mouth to tell her exactly where she could shove it.

Emma's delivery was practiced, though. She managed to get her _zing_ out before I could start on the first syllable.

"So upset you're going to cry yourself to sleep for a straight week?"

Something snapped inside of me.

There wasn't really a better way to put it, and I couldn't say why this one thing, terrible but so much less horrible on its own than all of the other things I'd had to endure put together, frayed the last thread of my self-control. Maybe it was just this last betrayal that had finally strained everything past the point of breaking. Maybe I'd just been relying too much on the Witch of Colchis, and her vindictiveness had seeped into me a little too deeply. If, if, if, maybe, maybe, maybe — I didn't really know for sure, one way or the other.

I did know, however, that it was Medea's acid that flooded through my veins in that moment. I did know that I had reached out for her, almost on instinct, and pulled her into myself, just enough to feel her influence, not enough to channel her power. Later, I realized that I had discovered a new facet of my powers in that moment, but right then, the only thing about my powers on my mind was the desperate need to keep them from bursting out of control and outing me in front of my worst enemies.

It was a close thing. A lot of my other heroes were too noble to allow themselves to strike at people so much weaker than them in anger, but Medea was not a hero, not in the strictest sense. She had been hurt and punished and betrayed, she had been forced to do terrible things, to kill her own brother in front of her loving father for the sake of a man she had been brainwashed into loving, and when she was no longer needed, when Jason had no longer needed her to steal and swindle kings out of their countries or treasures, she was discarded with no more care than a used up tissue.

Medea was not a hero, she was a victim like myself, a victim who'd been treated even worse than I had, and she did not restrain herself from tearing her enemies apart or taking revenge upon those who wronged her.

"Oh?" The words came out deceptively soft; silk, soaked in venom. "I knew you'd sunk pretty low, Emma, but making fun of me for crying when my mother died? Spilling secrets told to you in the strictest of confidences? Do your _friends_ here realize how heartless you are? Do they know you'll turn on them the minute you've 'outgrown' them, the way you did me?"

Emma and her hangers-on, who had all started laughing at me, suddenly stopped, some of them looking at Emma with surprise, like they hadn't known _why_ , exactly, that line was supposed to be so effective. I barely heard it over the thundering of blood in my ears.

"Would you cry, too, if your mom died?" I asked with a viciousness that felt like it didn't belong to me. It still felt good. "Or your dad? Or maybe you only care about your dad as long as he can get you out of trouble, and if he can't do _that_ for you, he may as well just —"

But Sophia stepped forward, snarling, and came so close to me that I had to take a step back. I could have counted the pores on her nose, if I'd been so inclined. The look in her eyes promised violence as surely as her curled fists.

"A little weakling like you should know better than to talk back to your betters."

A cruel laugh bubbled up in my chest, and I felt my lips part around it as it escaped from my mouth.

"You're right, Sophia, you've just got it the wrong way around. An ignorant thug like you should know better than to think you can talk down to your superiors."

Her eyes flashed dangerously, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw one hand begin to lift. Medea knew what to say to that.

"What are you going to do, Sophia? Punch me? Hit me until I'm black and blue? Put me in the hospital again? You get away with a lot, but do you really think you can claim you were defending yourself or whatever if the only part of you that's bloodied is your knuckles? You really think your posse of pet sociopaths would just sit by and watch, knowing that they could get thrown in jail for it, or that it would only take one bad day, just one bad day, before you beat _them_ up, too? You think the teachers could really ignore something like that happening right in front of them? Then go ahead, Sophia. Do it."

For several long seconds, she looked like she was considering it, like she really, desperately wanted to, but for all of the disparaging comments I might have uttered before about her intelligence, if only in my own head, she wasn't stupid. If she punched me, then all she did was prove me right.

"You see, Sophia, at the end of the day, you're just a high school bully. You and Emma will never be more powerful or more important than you are right now. The height of your life will be whatever trophies you win as a Track star. After that, out in the real world? You'll either be flipping burgers at Fugly Bob's or spreading your legs for the highest bidder."

In the stunned silence that followed, all I could hear was my own heart, pounding away. Some of the posse was gaping, others looked disturbed, and a few even seemed impressed in spite of themselves. I took that moment, with all of them standing there, wide-eyed and shocked, to push past the gaggle of girls and make good my escape. Nobody, not even Sophia, tried to stop me.

I didn't stop at the bottom of the stairs. I didn't stop in the bathroom or an empty classroom. I didn't even stop at the front doors. I just kept going and going, and I didn't stop until Winslow was far behind me and I was safe, safe from them and their retaliation, safe from Emma's words and Sophia's fists, safe from Madison's little pranks.

Then, out there in the open, with my bag slipping from my shoulder and onto the ground, I started laughing. Helplessly, unable to stop, unable to force myself to calm down, I laughed and laughed and laughed. I laughed until I cried, and then I laughed between sobs and sobbed between laughs. I must have looked mad to anyone who saw me.

And underneath all of the hurt and the anger and the fear, a tiny little flame flickered in my stomach and gave me warmth.

So, this was what victory tasted like.

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

 **As always, read, review, and enjoy.**

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 **p a treon . com (slash) James_D_Fawkes**


	11. Disillusion 2-2

**Disillusion 2.2**

When I'd calmed down enough to look around and take stock of where I was, it was to realize that my legs had carried me much farther than I'd thought they had. Somehow, they'd taken me halfway into downtown, and around me, there were businessmen and women in expensive suits and skirts scurrying about on their lunch breaks. A few of them looked at me askance as they passed, as though asking me why I wasn't in school or judging me a hooligan because of it, but most of them paid me no mind as they walked briskly to restaurants and fast food places to grab a quick bite to eat.

For a moment, I felt lost and didn't quite know what to do. The idea of returning to Winslow didn't appeal — I was going to face something much worse than a few unkind words, next time I saw the Trio, and part of the reason I'd left the school was because their revenge would have been swift and painful if I'd stayed — but I didn't feel like explaining to Dad why I'd skipped out if he came home early.

The longer I could avoid _that_ conversation, the better.

That didn't leave me with too much to do, though. I could maybe have gone over to the Boardwalk, but I passed through there every morning on my runs, and the novelty sort of wore off after a while. I could have gone to a coffee shop and sat down with one of the novels I'd rescued after Friday's "shower," but I wasn't sure I'd be able to focus on it enough to enjoy it — not after what had just happened, at any rate.

Maybe I should get some training in? I _had_ been focusing more on magic, lately, so I'd neglected to finish mastering my martial arts. On the other hand, there _was_ that project I needed to finish, so maybe what I should spend the rest of my day doing was trying to get that done? I'd certainly feel a lot safer, once it was completed.

Right then, my stomach rumbled, as though to chime in and offer its own opinion of what I should be doing, next. I reached for my backpack so I could grab my lunch, but as I bent down, a crumpled piece of paper slipped out of my pocket and fell to the ground. I grabbed it, too, and as I slung my bag over my shoulder, I deftly unfolded the paper with one hand.

A ten-digit number was written at the top — a cellphone number, I remembered — and beneath that, a little ways down, was a screenname: LittleMissDelphi.

Tattletale.

That was right; she said she'd wanted to meet me again today, after school. I'd meant to shoot her a message while I was on the computer earlier, but I'd gotten so sidetracked by all of the comments and praise in the Lung thread that I'd just forgotten about it.

Well, no reason not to, right? I didn't really have anything else to do today, so I might as well just skip right to the part I'd been most looking forward to — not that it was much of a competition, considering what a usual day at Winslow tended to look like for me. Didn't hurt that she'd been infinitely better company in maybe half an hour than my classmates had been in nearly two years.

To the library, then. I'd log in on the computers there and see if I couldn't get Tattletale to meet up with me a little earlier than planned.

My stomach rumbled again and I grimaced. After, of course, I found somewhere I could sit down and eat my lunch.

I folded the little piece of paper up neatly and stuck it back deep into my pocket, to make sure it would stay there, then I shifted my bag around to keep it from slipping and set about finding somewhere to eat.

In the end, I found a little coffee shop with an outside terrace, where maybe two dozen other people were sitting down to eat. I pulled up a table and grabbed my lunch out of my backpack, half expecting someone to show up and either throw me out or ask me why I wasn't in school. Fortunately, no one bothered me, so I got to enjoy my food in peace — a rare thing in Winslow, where I usually had to sneak away somewhere hidden and pray I wouldn't be discovered as I ate as quickly as I could.

Once I was done, I slung my bag back over my shoulder, then ordered a coffee on my way out to show my thanks for letting me stay and eat. I nursed that — it wasn't bad, but it wasn't the best coffee I'd ever had, either — on my way over to the library and tossed the cup out in the bin outside.

When I made it inside, just after one o'clock, it was to find the place mostly empty. Anyone who might have come here to spend their lunch hour in quiet had already gone back — to work, to school, or whatever they did with their days — so the line of computers on the second floor was almost abandoned. Only one other person was up there, an older woman who paid me no mind as I sat down and glanced around to make sure I had some privacy.

It wasn't hard to find the username LittleMissDelphi once I got onto PHO. She was active in quite a few threads, mostly dealing with capes and theories about their powers. A couple of her posts I read, mostly out of curiosity, consisted of logical arguments about why this cape had this power, not this power, but this was why people might get confused.

That wasn't the only kind of thing she wrote, of course, but I didn't have all day to read through her history or something, so I scrolled back up to her name, clicked on it, and a drop down menu appeared. I clicked on 'Send a private message.'

Immediately, it gave me three options: make a new account, sign up with an already existing account, or send anonymously, and for a moment, I was just going to send it anonymously. Something stopped me, though. A thought. Something Tattletale had said the previous night, about how capes could get railroaded because they didn't have good enough (or any) control over the narrative.

That…was a problem. I'd beaten Lung, met Armsmaster, and he and Miss Militia had both left me on good terms, but even despite that, some people in the Lung thread earlier had suggested that maybe I'd done it because I was with the Empire or wanted to join them. A few had said I was doing it for street cred, so that I could muscle my way in on Lung's territory. They'd been vastly outnumbered by the well-wishers, but there were still those few who'd looked at it and imagined some nefarious purpose.

That was the issue, when it came down to it. I was more aware than perhaps anyone else exactly how easily public perception of a hero could change, how thin the line between being a hero and a villain was when it came to what people saw and believed, and Tattletale had only driven that home last night. If no one came out to say I was a hero, to clarify my alignment and let everyone know I was a force for good, then anyone could say anything and make any claim about me they liked.

I'd lived with that sort of thing for nearly two years, in my everyday life. Sophia, Emma, and Madison were the ones controlling the narrative of my life at Winslow, making me out to be worthless or a druggy or a slut or any other number of vile things. I couldn't stop it at Winslow, but that didn't mean I had to let it happen as Apocrypha, too.

If I joined the Wards, it wouldn't be a concern. I'd have the Protectorate and the PRT handling any concerns about narrative or public image, releasing official statements and defending me from lies and slander. What if I didn't, though? I still wasn't absolutely sure about it, so even if I was leaning towards it now, my final decision might just be to keep my independence, and then it _would_ be a concern. I'd have to handle my own publicity, and that would mean engaging the people on PHO and giving my side of the story.

Maybe it was a little bit heavy to think about all of that just because of a sign in prompt, but even if not then, I'd have to worry about it eventually.

I opened a new tab and set about creating my new account. I filled out all of the necessary details (just a few scattered things, like date of birth, email, and password), went through the registration process under the username "Apocrypha" (surprisingly, it wasn't taken). The longest part of the whole thing was waiting for the confirmation email to show up in my inbox, and even that only took about twenty or thirty seconds. There was something about cape verification included, where you had to send the mods a picture of yourself in costume using your powers, but I decided to wait and handle that part later, when I had a little more privacy to transform and show off.

Once it was all done, I went back to my first tab, refreshed, clicked back on LittleMissDelphi, and clicked 'Send a private message' again.

And for the next ten minutes, I sat there, staring dumbly at the screen. I couldn't think of what, exactly, to say or how to say it. Tattletale didn't strike me as being really formal and stuffy, so wording it like a job application or something would just be strange, but it wasn't like we were close friends and I could just go, "Hey, want to meet up?"

In the end, I went for something simple and probably really timid, but I was really out of my comfort zone and didn't have any other idea for how to contact her.

 _[Hi. So, you said you wanted to meet up with me today and finish our conversation…?]_

I was waiting for maybe three minutes before the reply came in.

 _[Hi, Apocrypha,]_ the message read. [ _Yeah. I'm available whenever you are. Is three o'clock good for you?]_

I typed back, [ _Sure. Three o'clock works fine. Where are we meeting?]_

 _[Do you remember where we met last night?]_ asked LittleMissDelphi. [ _I figured we'd meet up there, then head to this little coffee shop just off of the Boardwalk. Casual clothes, if you know what I mean. That all right with you?]_

Casual clothes, which had to mean meeting in our civilian identities.

For a moment, I wanted to say no. Maybe it was just paranoid of me, but I was a little uneasy about the idea of showing up to a meeting with another cape as plain, ordinary Taylor Hebert. Especially since _that_ wasn't quite done, so I was actually just as squishy as any other human being, right now. Even though Tattletale and I had been friendly enough last night, a couple minutes of amicability did not an ironclad trust make.

Eventually, though, I managed to convince myself, mainly by reminding myself that _she_ was the one to suggest it, so she was going to be showing up in her civvies, too. Or so I thought. How could I know? I couldn't. The compromise was that I would go there and see if she actually showed up out of costume, and if she did, then I could extend her this much trust, if only because it would mean she was risking just as much as I was.

 _[Sure,]_ I wrote back to her. _[That works.]_

 _[See you then! ;D]_

For an instant, I hesitated. Then, seized by a sudden boldness, I parroted her line from last night back to her.

 _[It's a date.]_

I waited for a response for a few more minutes, but none showed up, so I spent another minute or two rechecking the Lung thread I'd looked at earlier — it was up to nearly three-hundred pages, now — then signed off. I grabbed my bag from where I'd set it on the floor, slung it back over my shoulder, and then I left.

It took me about forty-five minutes, all told, to get back to the place where I'd fought Lung and met Tattletale — Mason Street, the post on PHO had said, although with most of the signs having their paint stripped off from the fire, it was a little harder to rely on those — and I stopped just one street over, rather than marching up to there boldly. I checked my watch to see how much time I had, and it said two-thirty, which gave me half an hour until I was supposed to meet her.

I glanced around to see if anyone was watching, then I slipped into an alleyway, changed into my base Breaker form, and used my increased strength and speed to leap up onto a nearby building — I managed to reach the second story fire escape. From there, I climbed up to the roof and sat down.

A moment of concentration was all it took, and I had Installed Medea again. Maybe another caster type would've done just as well, but I had to admit, Medea was growing on me, for a number of reasons. Not the least of which was that I could make comparisons between how she had been dragged through the mud and how I had, too.

What came next didn't even require some of her Divine Words. I just channeled a bit of that energy she used, held my hand out over the roof, and _pushed_. Like a weed on fast-forward, a few seconds later, a jagged crystal roughly twice the size of a baseball had formed beneath my palm. A photonic crystal — not a philosopher's stone, but from what I remembered from Flamel, one of the steps to making one.

From there, it took maybe five minutes to shape it and breathe a transient, artificial life into my creation, and as I lifted it gently into my hands, the crystalline bird that was my new familiar turned its head with a deceptively fluid motion to look up at me with blank eyes. No spirit, no soul, just a rudimentary intelligence more like a computer program than a living thing.

Traditional methods involved the use of an actual animal. Cats and birds were the most common, but just about any animal could be turned into a familiar, if you had the skill. Medea preferred her Dragon Teeth, but those were too conspicuous to use in broad daylight, and I wanted a scout, not an army to fight my enemies with. For that matter, I wasn't looking for a permanent assistant or anything, either, just a temporary set of eyes to help keep me safe. If I decided on something more lasting later, then that was for later.

The last thing necessary was to enforce my control over it. That, too, only took a moment of thought and concentration, a whispered contract, and a few seconds later, I felt my mind open up and connect to the bird in my hands.

It was nothing special. No epiphany or vast increase in visual acuity or anything. No, "I was blind, but now I see." Just a…link, for lack of a better term. A bridge between my mind and the basic intellect of the crystal sitting on my palms. If I pushed, I could share its vision, so I closed my eyes, threw that connection wide open, and after a brief moment, barely a second, of disorientation, I was staring up at myself.

It was…weird. There was a strange disconnect between my sight and my sense of self. Medea wasn't bothered, but to me, it was still a bit off-putting. I had to take several long minutes just to get used to awkwardness of the perspective, of the world being so much bigger, of looking up at myself, so tall and almost overbearing.

I didn't have that much time, though. Tattletale was going to be showing up, soon, if she wasn't there already. Fortunately, even though I _could_ have taken manual control of my new familiar, it still had enough intelligence to know how to fly all on its own, so when I gave it the command to take off and scout out the area on Mason Street, it spread its wings and went without issue.

It would take some adjustment, having a bird's eye view of everything. It wasn't at all like just looking down from the top of a building — it was the constant motion that made it different, the constant moving forward, the jerking as wings flapped to maintain altitude and flight speed. Things looked, at once, both bigger and smaller, like I was above all of the problems below, but at any moment, they could reach up and swallow me.

It _did_ give me a really good view of what Lung and I had done, last night. The damage looked even worse in the daylight, where shadows and darkness couldn't hide the scars of our battle. A feeling of unease and not a little guilt churned in my stomach — like I'd thought before, if this had happened downtown, even this devastation would have been so much worse, and so many people would probably have died in the crossfire. Every broken wooden beam would instead have been a bone, every crumpled house, a family that would either be homeless or dead, and every patch of melted road, a person forever scarred or maimed.

I couldn't think about that now, though. I had a reason I was here, after all, so I focused back on my original goal.

The first circuit around the street was done from up high, way above the roofline, to check for an ambush or some group waiting for me to show up. There was no one. The second circuit was done lower, to look through the alleyways and check again to make sure I wouldn't be pounced on the moment I went down there. At last, I had it go lower, about thirty-five feet up, and check on that meeting spot.

My familiar made virtually no noise as it swept over the street, but for a soft, keening whistle as the wind soared over its wings. No chirping that would draw attention. Even so, as I watched it make its circuit and saw a blonde girl standing in the exact spot we'd met last night, she paused and looked up from her phone and seemed to catch sight of it. She even offered it a wave and a grin, as though she were greeting a friend she'd been waiting for.

The girl was tall and slender and obviously took care of herself. She was dressed in casual, everyday clothes: a black shirt with a stylized purple eye in the center of the chest and a simple denim skirt that went down to her knees. Thrown over her shoulder was a satchel, a beige thing made of some kind of thick, hardy fabric, more like something someone might carry a laptop in than a purse.

My familiar was too far away to get a better look at the fine details, but this seemed to be Tattletale, and she _had_ , actually, come in civilian clothes. I pursed my lips in my real body, then commanded my bird to get in closer. It made another half circuit of the street, then swooped down, and as it came to her, the girl lifted up one hand in offering, so I ordered it to perch itself on her outstretched finger.

"Hey there, little guy," she said quietly, still grinning. "Or girl? No, neither, huh? You must be Apocrypha's."

She had green eyes, I noticed, deep, bottle green eyes. There was a smattering of freckles across her nose and under her eyes, where they would have been hidden by her mask, last night. Her hair, now that my familiar was close enough to see, was done in a loose braid. She was…actually really pretty. The kind of girl Emma would have hung around with.

As my familiar quirked its head to one side in a distinctly avian manner, Tattletale gently lifted her hand up and started examining it from other angles.

"You're made of crystal," she muttered. "Not diamond — hell, _that_ would be expensive — not glass, not sapphire… Maybe quartz? That still doesn't seem right, though…"

She let her hand lower back down and stared at me…at my familiar directly in the eyes. The grin took on a somewhat embarrassed tilt and she gave a rueful chuckle.

"And you can hear me, can't you, Apocrypha?"

In my real body, I startled, but my familiar didn't move at all. Reeling from the surprise, I had to sit there for several long seconds and wonder: _How the hell did she know?_

"Or maybe you can't?"

The words drew me back to her, and when I refocused on my familiar's sight, Tattletale had leaned in closer, frowning.

"I'm pretty sure you can see me, at least," she said. "This thing doesn't have any vocal cords, so I doubt it can give an oral report when you call it back. Plus, it's got no personality, no real…intelligence. Just enough to move and take orders, right? On the other hand, powers _are_ pretty bullshit…"

She tilted her head to one side, eyes narrowing.

"But your powers are all about mythological heroes and stuff," she mused. "This is…wizard-y stuff, right? Familiars or something like that. I'm not an expert, but there are a few witches that I can think of from legends —"

How dare you?!

The word stung something inside of me, something that wasn't exactly me, and I had to grit my teeth against the surge of rage that welled up from inside my soul. My familiar suddenly jerked off of Tattletale's fingers and took flight, and I didn't care if it scratched her with its talons in the process. As it left, I barely heard her murmur to herself, "Guess I said something I shouldn't have…"

When it returned to me, I took a moment to breathe out and focus myself, just so that I wouldn't obliterate it in my anger, then I gave it one final command — to go home and hide in the gutter or under the porch until I got back. I'd figure out what to do with it then, whether I wanted to improve it to something more permanent or just dismantle it.

After it was gone, I took another couple seconds to calm down, then released my Install and sat there, stunned, as the anger vanished with it. All of that, all of that rage and indignation, it was all from Medea and all over a single, innocent word? Not even something meant as an insult, just a simple, innocuous word that had come to mean "female magic user" in modern culture?

I lifted my hand up to my chest, and I felt the phantom of that anguish and fury still fading. That was…wow. Medea really felt that strongly about it?

After another minute or two, I pulled myself to my feet, walked over to the edge, and let myself drop down to the alleyway below. The building was barely three stories up, and if I was a normal person, that probably would've been enough to seriously hurt, but in my base Breaker form, I landed with…well, it wasn't exactly catlike grace, but it was graceful enough that I didn't make more than a muffled _thump_ as I hit the ground.

I took another moment or two to collect myself and try to squash the nervousness swirling in my belly, then I let my powers go and became normal, ordinary Taylor Hebert again, I squared my shoulders, mustered my courage, and stepped out onto the street.

Tattletale was nursing her right index finger as I came upon her, and immediately, her head swiveled around to look at me.

"Hi," she said a little ruefully. "Listen, I'm sorry about what I said —"

"No," I cut her off a little gruffly. I cleared my throat. "Sorry. It was my — I mean, Medea doesn't like the word 'witch,' so…"

I trailed off awkwardly. I had the urge to apologize for hurting her, but the lingering remnants of Medea's influence felt that such a light injury was justified.

"Your powers can…" murmured Tattletale. She shook her head and offered me another smile. "It's fine," she assured me. "I'm used to saying things that piss people off, just not doing it accidentally."

She laughed a little and shook her head again lightly. "Let's start over. Hi, I'm Tattletale, but you can call me Lisa."

For a few seconds, I hesitated. This was it, the point of no return. I was about to trust someone I barely knew with my most important secret — who I was beneath the mask. A part of me was screaming not to do it, probably the damaged part that had suffered under the Trio's "gentle affections," but Tattletale had already opened herself up to me, already shown me her face and offered me her name.

I wanted to trust her, too. I wanted it badly. Maybe I should have been more suspicious, maybe I shouldn't have been willing to risk it, but there was a girl here offering her hand and her friendship and I wanted that _so badly_.

"Taylor," I said at last. "My name is Taylor."

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

 **As always, read, review, and enjoy.**

 **And for early access to chapters and bonus content:**

 **p a treon . com (slash) James_D_Fawkes**


	12. Disillusion 2-3

**Disillusion 2.3**

Lisa gave me a broad smile. "Nice to meet you — again."

"Um, yeah. Nice to meet you."

"Here, hold on."

She unclipped the clasp on her satchel and reached inside, and a moment later, she pulled out a plastic box — a lunchbox, I realized — with a picture of Alexandria on the side, posed heroically. After adjusting her grip and redoing the clasp on her satchel, she held it out to me in offering.

"Here," said Lisa.

"What's this?" I asked as I took it. The contents shifted around with the motion, and I froze. Was this…?

"Two grand," she replied, confirming my suspicion. "Straight from Lung's coffers. That's part of my share of what we grabbed during the Ruby Dreams fiasco about five weeks ago."

"You're…giving me money?"

I wasn't sure I understood what was happening. My thoughts were whirling about in six or seven different directions, and grasping at a single one of them was like wrestling with the air.

Lisa titled her head a little. "I _did_ say that the kiss was down payment, remember."

"I mean…yeah." I vaguely remembered the kiss she'd planted on my cheek and the comment she'd made accompanying it, but I'd never thought that she meant something like _this_. "But, ah, well… Two thousand dollars?"

She shrugged. "It's about as much as you can put in the bank at one time before it starts raising eyebrows, or else I would've put more in there. Used to be ten-thousand, but they lowered it in the early two-thousands on account of Thinkers and guys like the Elite taking advantage of the system."

"That's…" Not really what I was worried about.

"Is it about where it comes from?" she asked. "Because I'm sure you need it more than he does, and you'll probably put it to better use, too."

"That's not really…very comforting."

This was stolen money. It came from drug dealers and sex peddlers and crime lords. It was probably soaked in more blood and debauchery than I could imagine.

Lisa sighed. "Remember what I told you last night? There's only so many ways independent heroes can make any money, and taking spoils from villains is one of them. If it really bothers you that much, then do the exact opposite of what Lung was going to use it for and donate to charity or something. It's up to you. But I won't be taking it back — that part, I won't budge on."

My mouth snapped shut and whatever I'd been about to say remained unsaid. After another moment or two of indecision and conflict, I took the box and stuffed it into my backpack. I'd figure out exactly what I was going to do with all of that money later on.

"Alright," said Lisa, "now that we've got that out of the way, what do you say we head over to that coffee shop I mentioned? This isn't exactly the best of neighborhoods."

I glanced around almost on reflex, because what she said was true: even the buildings that hadn't been touched by my fight with Lung were ramshackle and rundown, and last night, most of them had been without power — even the streetlamps had been out.

"Uh, sure."

"Great!" She offered me a bright smile. "Come on, then. Follow me."

She started off, and a few moments later, after a second or two of hesitation, I fell into step beside and slightly behind her. The flat, heavy sound of her footsteps drew my eye down her long legs, where I discovered that she was wearing thick-soled boots rather than something more distinctly feminine, like high heels.

She led me out of the Docks and in the direction of the Boardwalk, the Bay's tourist destination, where all of the best (and most expensive) shops were located. We weaved through the streets and the alleyways with the expert precision of someone who knew the Docks like the back of her hand, and it occurred to me, while we were walking, that Lisa must have lived somewhere around here to be so familiar with the area.

As we went, the festering decay of the Docks started to give way to cleaner, nicer buildings, and before I knew it, the Boardwalk was starting to come into sight. Then, Lisa suddenly turned and led me down a side street — pretty upscale, nice; not quite spotless and polished as the Boardwalk tended to be, but far and away better than the Docks we'd left — and stopped in front of a small, quaint little coffee shop made of dull, red brick. The large, somewhat stylized golden letters that stretched all the way across its front said, AHNENERBE.

Beneath that, in much smaller font, was, _Server of fine teas and coffees since 1941._

"This is it," said Lisa. "I found it a couple of months back. Best coffee in the city, hands down."

She reached for the door and pushed inwards, and it swung open with the jingle of a bell. I followed her inside into an old-fashioned feeling café: the walls were a deep, honey yellow color on the upper half and exposed brickwork on the lower, with dull, hardwood floors that looked aged but well-kept. When I looked up at the ceiling, there were two sets of thick, wooden beams crisscrossing above my head: one set built into the ceiling, and then a second set about two feet below that. The lights that lit the café hung in glass fixtures from rustic, black chains that reached up to the ceiling, casting the place in a dim, yellow glow that added to its charm.

There was a bar at the back end, complete with high-backed stools, and along the side of the building that faced the street, there were a bunch of tables set in front of the windows, rather than the booths a more modern coffee shop might use. The rest of the floor was taken up by more tables, old, square things that had no fancy designs or ornamentations, complete with chairs that looked as though they'd been made by hand.

It wasn't very crowded. Most of the tables were empty, but they'd probably have been full a few hours ago, and they might fill up again before Lisa and I left with students getting out of class.

"Why don't you go and find us a table?" Lisa asked, glancing back at me. "I'll go grab us a couple of drinks — Earl Grey, no cream, three sugars, right?"

"I, uh, yes," I said, blinking. How did she know my preferences?

Lisa smiled that Cheshire grin and said, "Be back in a jiffy."

She turned away and went over towards the bar, where a bartender was standing next to a bunch of tins that I had to imagine contained loose leaf tea and coffee grinds. For a moment, I just stood there, watching her, then I turned away and started wading through to find a table in the back of the shop, far from the rest, where we wouldn't be heard talking about cape stuff.

On the way, I passed a pair of girls sitting together. One of them had long, blonde hair and her eyes closed as she sipped from a mug of what smelled like coffee, and the other, whose back was to me, was dressed in a red leather jacket that looked incredibly expensive and had equally long, dark hair that fell in curls around her shoulders and back — it looked so familiar that for one heart-pounding second, I thought I might be looking at Mom.

The second girl turned slightly to look at me over the rim of her mug, and her deep brown eyes, so deep and so dark that they seemed almost to suck you in, met mine for a fraction of a second.

Not Mom.

I tore myself away and kept going. Of course she wasn't Mom. Mom had died almost three years ago.

I found a table near the back corner, isolated and alone. There was no one else nearby, so it would be safe to talk about whatever we liked without the risk of being overheard. There were four chairs arranged around it, two on either side, and I took the chair that was very nearly wedged into the corner where the two walls met. It gave me a good view of the rest of the café, so I'd be able to see anyone trying to get close and eavesdrop.

Lisa kept me waiting only for about five minutes, although it felt more like fifteen. When she came back, she held a silver tray — or maybe it was aluminum; Nicolas would have known, but I wasn't enough of an alchemist on my own to tell just by sight — that carried two steaming mugs and a pair of…some kind of baked good whose name I didn't know. A crumb cake of some kind, I thought. With a red fruit spread — raspberry, maybe? Strawberry? Cherry?

"Here we go," Lisa said, setting one of the mugs in front of me. "One Earl Grey, three sugars, no cream."

She slid into the chair across from me, spinning the tray around so that it stretched longways over the tabletop.

"And," she added, grinning cheekily, "one raspberry crumb cake each. You have to indulge every once in a while, after all."

I hesitated for a moment and looked down into my mug. I'd always thought it funny that a "black" tea was actually red in color when brewed, and when I was younger, I'd found it even funnier that a black tea that came out red when brewed was called Earl Grey.

"Well?" said Lisa, smiling. "Go ahead. Try it. Best tea you've ever tasted, I promise."

I hesitated for a few seconds longer, then looped two of my fingers through the mug's handle, lifted it upwards, blew on my tea one, two, three times, as was my habit, and tentatively, I took my first sip.

My tastebuds exploded with flavor — the sweetness of the sugar, the tang of the Earl Grey that enhanced and complimented it, and the almost fruity smell assaulted my nostrils and laid siege. It was, indeed, the best tea I'd ever tasted, sharp and strong and tailored to my liking, and for a single instant, I was a little girl again, drinking the mug of tea my mother had made for me on a cool Spring morning as she smiled at me over the rim of her own mug.

Mom had always preferred loose leaf tea. Said the flavor was stronger, purer than when you bought the preprocessed teabags that everyone liked to use. It was expensive, though, and the last time I'd had any in the house was when Dad bought me some for Christmas.

I felt my eyes moisten, and I shut them to give myself a moment to regain my composure. A single pair of tears made their way down my cheeks.

"Too hot?"

Lisa's voice brought me back to the present, and when I blinked my eyes back open to look at her, she had a sad, knowing little smile on her face. She knew about Mom and about why I had nearly started crying, just now, I knew she knew, even if I didn't know how she could, but she was giving me an out, a way to avoid the subject entirely.

"No," I said a little shakily. I reached up with my other hand and thumbed away the tears. "No, the tea's perfect. It just…"

"Yeah," she said quietly. "I…lost my brother, so… I kinda know how you feel. It was actually part of… Well. You know."

Her Trigger Event. Her One Bad Day.

I cleared my throat. "So. You…said there was something you still wanted to talk about?"

She gave me a quick, half smile to let me know that my attempt to change the subject really was _that_ transparent and that she was glad I'd done it.

"Yeah," she said. She reached for her crumb cake and tore off a part of it. "I know you did some research into capes after getting your powers. Honestly, it's the only sensible thing to do, and more capes should probably do it when they get theirs. Did you come across the PRT rating system?"

She popped the piece of cake into her mouth and started chewing. I decided I might as well try it and did the same thing, stopping halfway to dip it in my tea.

"Yes," I told her. "Blaster, Striker, Shaker, and all of that stuff, right?"

Lisa swallowed her food. I took a bite of mine and had to stop a moment to savor the taste — raspberry, and fairly sweet. Good tea _and_ good food? Just who the hell was running this place?

"Right," she said. "First, you should know that there are two categories that get left out of the official page, on account of their potential for abuse and the bad press they generate: Stranger and Master. They're pretty on the nose, name-wise. Strangers are those guys with powers that affect the way people perceive them. Turning invisible, taking on someone else's face, making you feel like he's your best friend you've known your entire life, that sort of thing. Really good at infiltration, really scary for information security."

Like Hassan, I thought, swallowing. He couldn't exactly turn invisible, at least not the one I'd used last night, but he could erase his presence so thoroughly that you wouldn't notice him unless he was standing right in front of you in a well-lit room.

"Isn't there some way around powers like that?"

"Right." Lisa nodded. "It's called Master-Stranger Protocols. The PRT uses them whenever one of their members or one of the Protectorate is under suspicion of being influenced by one or the other. Which brings me to the second one, Masters. Arguably, they're even scarier: they can take control of people. Not all of them, of course. Some of them just use some kind of projection or take control of things like animals or something. The ones you really have to worry about, though, are the ones that affect people — you heard of Heartbreaker?"

I scowled. "Who hasn't?"

Once I'd gotten my powers and really started to figure out how they worked, it had occurred to me that I might be one of the few who could take him down from a far enough distance not to be affected by his power. One or two of my archers could take the shot from halfway across the city, if they had a clear enough line of sight.

One of the things that stopped me was that it meant _killing_ someone. Staining my hands. The idea of actually taking someone's life, no matter how much they deserved it, wasn't something I thought I could do.

"Yeah. He's pretty nasty." Lisa took a sip from her mug. "That kind of Master is the PRT's worst nightmare. It's part of the reason why Paige Mcabee — you know, the singer, Canary? — is getting railroaded up north."

"Railroaded?"

"You haven't heard about that?" Lisa asked.

"No, can't say that I have."

"Apparently, her ex-boyfriend tried to harass her after one of her concerts. When she told him where he could shove it, it seems that her power affected him and he…took it a bit literally. Tossup on whether it was an accident or not, but my bet is that it was."

I raised an eyebrow. "You really think so?"

Lisa shrugged. "Look at her history. She's a singer, not Hookwolf. Powers are poorly understood enough as it is, and even the eggheads up at University of Whatever studying them can only say, 'I don't know,' when it comes to how they work or what the general limits are. So, yeah. My money is on the whole thing being an accident. Doesn't change the fact that they're gonna toss her in the Birdcage."

I straightened up. "Wait, what? The Birdcage? For a first offense?"

The Three Strikes policy was a hotly debated topic on PHO, from how valid it was to how it was applied to whether or not it should even be a thing. Some people thought it was useless and some people thought that it should be enforced more strictly, to prevent wrongly convicted or minor offenders from being shut in the hellhole that was the Birdcage with no way out and no possibility of parole.

Me, I thought it mostly did its job. Petty thieves who didn't even have a body count shouldn't be locked away for the rest of their lives in an unregulated hellhole like the Birdcage, but for guys like Lung and Heartbreaker and other unrepentant murderers, if you couldn't keep them in even the highest security prisons, then the Birdcage was really the only option.

"Yup," said Lisa, smiling grimly. "The judge and the prosecution are trying to set up precedent, sort of a message of, 'If you have Master powers and use them against other people, this is what will happen to you.' As far as setting an example goes, I personally think that it's tasteless and excessive, but then, I can't really do anything about it."

I frowned and looked down into my mug.

"Yeah…"

I reached for my crumb cake and tore off another big piece of it.

Paige Mcabee was going to be thrown into the Birdcage on a first offense, because the prosecutor and the judge were trying to make a political statement. It left a sour feeling in my gut, because it also felt like what was happening to me at Winslow, only quite a bit more serious. It was hard not to see the parallels; her situation was essentially mine, writ large.

What the hell could I do about it, though? A whole lot of nothing.

"Anyway," said Lisa, waving about a bit of her crumb cake. "That wasn't really what I wanted to talk about."

"Then what?" I asked.

She took another sip of her mug, then set it back down.

"Have you heard of the Unwritten Rules?"

"The what?"

"I thought not." She ate the piece of cake she'd been gesturing with. "PHO's got a lot of data on it, but this is the kind of thing capes don't really talk about much, so no one who isn't one has actually heard more than rumors. I'd be really irresponsible if I didn't tell _you_ about them, though."

She took another moment to sip at her mug again, and I got the feeling she was using the time to order her thoughts and figure out how she wanted to talk about this.

"Alright," Lisa said, "think of it like a kind of gentleman's agreement. It's this general understanding that capes have with one another, and if you know what's good for you, you follow it. The only ones who don't are those who don't care, like the Slaughterhouse Nine, or those who are strong enough to ignore them without consequence, like Lung."

"You talk about them like they're some kind of law or something," I said. "One that even villains will obey?"

Wasn't that a bit…counterintuitive? Villains, by definition, were criminals. Ignoring rules and laws was kind of part of the package.

Lisa shook her head. "It's not like it's official policy or anything. It's not some legal thing that can get you into trouble. Like I said, it's a kind of general understanding capes have with each other — heroes _and_ villains. Capes tend to follow them because things can get…messy, when they don't."

"Messy?"

"For instance," Lisa began, "one of the Unwritten Rules is not to target civilian identities. If your id falls out of your pocket or something, that's one thing, and that's fair game, because you screwed up and got yourself outed. Otherwise, though, heroes don't try to find villains' identities and villains don't try to find the heroes' identities. Capes need that safe zone, that ability to unwind and decompress. When you try to take that away, things start to escalate — a cape without a civilian id has nowhere to escape to, and therefore has no reason to retreat if a fight gets more heated than usual."

My brow furrowed. "Even the Protectorate…"

"Even them," she affirmed. "A villain backed into a corner has no more reason to hold back, after all."

In some ways, it felt wrong, because it made it easy for villains to hide just by taking off the mask, but in others, it was a relief. One of the things that had worried me about being a hero was that I might get found out and someone would try to attack my house or take Dad hostage or something.

"What about families?" I asked.

"Off limits. You don't go after Kaiser's kids, Kaiser doesn't come after your dad. It's not…perfect. Like I said, if they think they can get away with it, they'll do it, but generally, capes follow the Unwritten Rules so that things aren't chaos in the streets."

Suddenly, I was very glad that I hadn't just stopped at fixing the broken front step with magic.

"Speaking of chaos in the streets," said Lisa, "that's another part of the rules. It kinda goes hand in hand with the rest of them: don't escalate. If you start pushing harder, they'll push harder back. It's one thing to fight better or whatever, but the first person to resort to lethal force tends to not be the one who makes it out alive. That's why a lot of cape fights tend to just be guys bloodying each other up until one team retreats. Less messy, that way."

She took another sip from her mug.

"Like I said, though, some guys just ignore the rules or pick and choose the ones they follow. Guys like Lung and Hookwolf. Those are the guys who'd just as soon kill you and be done with it, even if they respect the rest of them, for the most part. Someone as strong as you can probably handle them just fine either way, but if it comes down to it, don't think for a minute that they'd flinch at the idea of cutting you to ribbons or making your insides your outsides."

I grimaced. Yeah, I'd figured that out pretty well last night. _Lung_ certainly hadn't had any qualms about trying to kill me, and from what I knew of Hookwolf, I couldn't imagine _he'd_ have any problems with it, either. You don't get body counts like the one he was rumored to have by being squeamish, after all.

"Most of the rest of them are things that apply to villains only, but there's one that you might argue is the most important." She set down her mug and looked me in the eyes. "Respect the truce. If there's a meeting in neutral territory, you don't attack the people attending it. If there's an Endbringer fight going on, you leave any problems you have with anyone else behind, or else you don't attend. Especially with the last one, there's actual laws in place for it. It's _that_ serious."

For a moment, I just sat there, mulling over everything she told me as I ate more of my crumb cake. Lisa seemed to have run through everything she wanted to say, or else she was waiting for my response, because she didn't say anything else after that.

What she said made at least _some_ sense, based on what I'd found out on PHO. Aside from guys like Lung, Oni Lee, and Hookwolf, it didn't seem like capes killed each other all that often, or even killed civilians. Leet and Über were in and out of jail as petty thieves, and aside from that one stream where they beat up a hooker, I hadn't heard about them actually hurting anyone. The E88 routinely put people in the hospital, if not the morgue, but aside from guys like Hookwolf, who actually had a serious body count, I couldn't recall hearing about their capes killing anyone.

Lung was different, but then, Lung was powerful enough that no one could tell him what he could and couldn't do. Oni Lee…I had no idea, but what I _had_ heard of him made him sound like a hitman rather than a fighter.

The way she described it, though, almost made it sound like…

"So what you're saying," I began slowly, "is that this is basically a giant game of cops and robbers?"

"To a degree, yeah," Lisa replied. "It's not that simple, and there _are_ guys like Lung who take it too seriously. But for the small time crooks and the thieves, like Über and Leet? For the C-listers and the B-listers, who do mostly street-level stuff like robbing banks or getting into fights over territory? There's a reason why the PRT holding cells are called revolving doors."

It wasn't that I couldn't see what she was saying, but…it sounded wrong, somehow. Like a paper thin façade to hide the ugly truth, that villains hid behind these rules when it suited them and discarded them when they got in the way, and the heroes, meanwhile, had to hamper themselves so that the villains didn't start going after their friends and families.

"That still seems a bit…"

"Look," said Lisa, "I'm not going to claim it's neat and clean and everyone follows the rules all the time. I wish I could, but the world isn't that nice. As long as _they_ respect the rules, though, you should, too. Anyone who doesn't, feel free to take the gloves off."

"Take the gloves off, huh…"

Like I had with Lung, she had to mean. Pull out the trump cards. Stop holding back.

My lips pursed and I glared down into my tea.

No. Not just that. The full weight and power of an Install was _way_ too much to use casually. Last night had proven that — Lung and I had destroyed an entire street, and if I hadn't managed to keep it contained, who knew how much worse it would have been? To use the kind of strength and power that had taken down Lung against guys like Über and Leet or people who were, aside from their powers, just as squishy as any other person off the street, that was overkill in the extreme.

"Hey." I blinked and found Lisa leaning forward towards me. "You looked like you were getting lost."

I shook my head. "Sorry," I said. "I was…just thinking. About… Did you see the street?"

"Ah." Lisa leaned back. "You mean all that damage you and Lung did."

"Yeah."

"That was kinda awesome to watch, honestly," said Lisa. "From a safe distance, of course, but still. Not often you see two guys on that level duking it out."

I frowned and opened my mouth.

"I know," she cut me off. "You're worried about doing that kind of damage all the time, right? Especially in parts of the city that are more occupied. That's a really good attitude to have."

She smiled. "All the same? I'm glad you hit Lung as hard as you did. You saved my butt, remember."

I flushed.

"I, uh, yeah."

What do you even say to that sort of thing?

She laughed and finished off her crumb cake.

"Alright," she said. "I think that's enough of the seriousness. Unless you've got something you still want to talk about?"

A couple of things, actually, but I thought those were probably things I needed to figure out for myself. Lisa couldn't give me answers for everything, and I wasn't sure I wanted her to even if she could.

"Not…really, no."

"Then what do you say we get out of here?"

I blinked. "Huh?"

"C'mon." She drained the last of her mug and set it down on the tray. "Let's forget about all of this heavy stuff for a while and go do something mindless and stupid. I hear Parian is having one of her shows, today."

For a second, I hesitated again. It was one thing to meet with Tattletale because she still had something she needed to talk to me about, but it was another thing entirely to go out and do casual things with her, like she was…

Like she was my friend.

Maybe I was scared. The last friend I'd had was Emma, and she'd turned on me out of the blue for no apparent reason. She'd taken all of the secrets I shared with her and she used them against me, doing so much more damage than Sophia and Madison could ever hope to. She'd dropped a years-long friendship for a stranger she'd met during the scant months I was away at summer camp.

And after that, how could I trust anyone not to do the same, if the girl I'd thought of as a sister could betray me so thoroughly?

I looked down into my mug, at the last remnants of the tea which had been tailored specifically to my liking. I thought about everything Lisa had already done for me, the things she'd taught me about capes out of the kindness of her heart. She didn't seem to have any ulterior motives and she'd been nothing but nice to me, so far.

Did it matter, in the end, if she knew things about me she shouldn't be able to know, when she was using that knowledge to be a…a better _friend_?

I favored Lisa with a smile.

"Sure."

I decided that it didn't. At least for now, I'd take this leap of faith.

Even if a part of me worried that this was too good to be true.

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

 **As always, read, review, and enjoy.**

 **And for early access to chapters and bonus content:**

 **p a treon . com (slash) James_D_Fawkes**


	13. Disillusion 2-4: Darwin's Law

**Disillusion 2.4: Darwin's Law**

Sophia Hess was not the type to back down.

She didn't run away, she didn't turn her back, and she didn't retreat unless it was to find a better position.

Most importantly, Sophia _didn't_ _ **lose**_ **.**

The PRT and the Protectorate may have managed to slip a leash around her neck, but they didn't _own_ her, and she didn't let their rules and regulations and pansy-ass refusal to act decisively stop her from doing her own private patrols, outside the view of her handlers and the weaklings she was supposed to call teammates. She was not a tame housecat, after all, she was a _panther_ , all claws and teeth and lethality.

Even in her civilian life, she didn't lose. Every day, or near enough that there wasn't much difference, she showed her superiority and put the cowering sheep of Winslow like Taylor Hebert — _especially_ Taylor Hebert — in their place.

She and her best friend, Emma, ruled Winslow in all but name. She was a Track star, Emma was a radiant beauty with modelling prospects — even the upper years didn't dare bother them.

The teachers? When they bothered to care, no one dared say anything against Sophia or Emma — no one who wanted to go anywhere in Winslow's internal hierarchy, anyway. Any weaklings that thought to tattle were easily discredited by Emma's friends, like Madison or Julia, because _of course_ Sophia and Emma hadn't done those things, why would they?

That was how it was supposed to be. Sophia won, the end.

Except she hadn't.

Hebert was a pathetic weakling, so afraid of her own shadow that she didn't even bother eating in the cafeteria, anymore. Any brief moment of bravery — rare as they were — when Emma was asserting dominance was something Sophia quite happily and quite mercilessly squashed, and then Hebert went back to being a spineless loser.

Except she hadn't.

When Hebert had back-mouthed Emma, Sophia had done as she always did during those moments when Hebert grew something of a spine: she put Hebert back in her place. Like normal, Hebert was supposed to shrivel and shrink in on herself, and the day would go on.

Except. She. _Fucking_. **Hadn't**.

Instead, she'd rallied harder and come back with a spiel Sophia might have expected from _Emma_ , but certainly not from _Hebert_. She'd come back, delivered a speech that would have actually been impressively scathing, if it hadn't been directed in Sophia's direction, and then she'd _dared_ Sophia to hit her — to hit her, and _prove her right_.

Again, it would have been impressive, if it hadn't also been _so fucking infuriating_.

Because she _couldn't_ have hit Hebert, not without proving everything Hebert had said was right. At the same time, though, to _not_ hit Hebert meant that Hebert had _beaten_ her. Hitting her meant Hebert was right, not hitting her was backing down and letting her win, _especially_ after she'd lit into Emma, too…

There was _no fucking way to win_.

So, Sophia had done the only thing she could: she'd backed down. As much as she would have liked to hit Hebert right in that smug, ugly face of hers, not only would it mean losing (if in a much more personally satisfying way), but there was no way she would have gotten away with it. A trip in the hallway, a shove with her shoulder, a little push every now and again, those could be written off. A fist to the face, though? Giving the girl a black eye, as good as it would have felt? Those were much harder to ignore and much more likely to make it back to Sophia's handler for the PRT, which would make things even more of a hassle.

Immediately, Sophia and Emma had started making plans for how to get back at Hebert, but, as though she had sniffed out danger, Hebert was nowhere to be seen, that afternoon, and Sophia was left to stew. She could maybe have taken it out on some other loser or something, but there was no Track practice that day and Sophia wasn't scheduled for any patrols that night, either.

Sophia was pissed, and there was nothing she could do about it. She just had to put up with it, that feeling of impotent rage that reminded her far too much of how helpless she'd been during her Trigger, and that only made her angrier.

As she was on her way home, however, that anger crystallized into a _brilliant_ idea.

Emma had once mentioned how _proud_ Hebert was of her hair. At the time, Sophia hadn't given it much thought, just filed it away for future reference. The only reason they hadn't done anything with it before was that it was _visible_ , and the more visible something they did was, the more likely the incompetent stooges on Winslow's staff were to take notice and actually _do_ something. A push or a shove here, some missing homework there, and it could be written off as either an accident or Taylor just making excuses for why she wasn't doing her work.

But cutting Taylor's hair in the middle of the school day meant carrying scissors, and with how skittish the teachers were about gang stuff, that meant Sophia and Emma might get in trouble for some bullshit like _assault with a deadly weapon_. Better not to risk it.

Except it didn't have to be done in school, did it?

So, on her way home, Sophia scrolled back through her texts with Emma, looking for Hebert's address. When _that_ didn't work, she fumed for a few minutes, then had the idea of looking it up in the digital equivalent of the Brockton Bay phonebook. There was no "Hebert, Taylor," listed there, though, and Sophia fumed again as she got off the bus and started the walk home.

Then, halfway to her front door, she remembered, well, of course Hebert's name wasn't listed, it'd be listed under her father's name. B…something. Maybe C-something? Sophia was fairly sure Emma had mentioned it at some point, she just couldn't remember what it was.

Sure enough, the only listing anywhere near enough to Winslow for Taylor to attend was a _Hebert, Daniel_. _Danny_ , Sophia felt she could remember Emma saying. Danny Hebert, Taylor's dad. It was going to be a bit of a hike, but the reward at the end was going to be _fucking awesome_.

That night, Sophia pretended to go to bed early and waited for the rest of the house to fall asleep. The hours ticked by with agonizing slowness, and once or twice, Sophia had to catch herself before she dozed off, too. Whenever the wait seemed too long, she consoled herself with the knowledge that it would be well worth it to see the look on Hebert's face in school the next day — if the girl even bothered to show and didn't just hide under her pillow all day.

Once the glowing numbers on her clock showed midnight, however, Sophia slowly extricated herself from her blankets and quietly got dressed. She put on her old costume, the one she'd worn before being forced into the Wards, and it felt _so very good_ to slip on that old, metal hockey mask instead of the carved visage of her official mask. For a little extra warmth, she pulled on a dull, grey hoody, too. Then, she grabbed a harness, her crossbow, and a bunch of bolts — both the tranquilizers the PRT had provided and the broadheads she wasn't supposed to be using anymore — because she might as well go whole hog and get in a solo patrol while she was out.

The last things she snagged before leaving were an old rag and a bottle of chloroform hidden under a loose floorboard (something she'd gotten ages ago for those takedowns where she needed to, ah, _interrogate_ a scumbag, rather than just putting the fear of God into him, but never actually gotten the chance to use). Just to make sure Hebert wouldn't wake up while she was at work.

Then, with everything in hand, Sophia climbed out of her window and used her powers to drift down onto the street below. Once she was safely on the ground, she snuck over a few streets, sticking to the shadows to make sure no lucky idiot managed to trace her back to her home, and only then, when she was sure she'd taken all the necessary precautions, did she pull out her phone and use its GPS to plot out her route.

"Fucking A," she breathed.

In the end, it took her about an hour to make the trip, and when her phone finally showed a little icon that said, "You have reached your destination," she was staring across the street at an old house. It was well-kept, but it still looked like something that had been built a hundred years ago, and its age definitely showed. Compared to Sophia's apartment or the houses closer to the center of the city, it looked positively ancient.

When she took a picture of the front door and zoomed in on the number, it matched the address she'd pulled up early in the afternoon. This was where _Hebert, Daniel_ lived, which meant this was also where Taylor Hebert lived. Sophia smiled.

She was there.

She crossed the street quickly, careful to keep her footsteps quiet and unnoticeable. As she walked, however, a feeling of foreboding crept down her spine, and she had to suppress a shiver as something cold wrapped around her heart.

This was a bad idea. She really shouldn't be doing this. In fact, she should just turn around and head back home. Forget about the whole thing — she shouldn't have come in the first place.

But Sophia scowled, cursed the moment of hesitation, and soldiered on until she stood in the Heberts' yard, looking up at the ancient house. She was not going to chicken out _now_ , so close that she could taste it.

Which room was Taylor's, though? She glanced at each of the windows she could see, but it wasn't like one had frilly pink curtains to give away which one belonged to her target. Okay. So, how should she go about finding it? Should she go through the front door and search room to room until she found Taylor, or should she climb up and stick her head through each window? Or maybe…

It was only by instinct that Sophia avoided death.

The prickling on her neck was what tipped her off that something was wrong, and as she dove forward and out of the way almost on reflex, something cut through the air where her neck had just been — she heard the _whoop_ it made as it passed. She came back up with catlike grace where others might have fallen flat on their faces, and as she whipped around and lashed out at her assailant, using her crossbow like a club, all she saw at first was the color: pale white.

But after she struck — CRACK — and the figure went down, collapsing like a puppet with its strings cut, she had the chance to get a better look at the pile in front of her. The distinctly _inhuman_ pile.

"What the?"

She leaned over and peered down at it. Pale and white, it was a collection of rods, some straight, some curved, mostly rounded. In fact, it looked distinctly like…

"Bone?"

As though she had spoken the magic word, the ground around her erupted, and all over the yard, skeletal hands reached up, pulling up entire bodies made of nothing but bone as though over a cliff or the edge of a pond. Each one had ribs shaped like claws, no head but for a pair of jaws with sharp, crocodile teeth, and carried some kind of weapon made of bone. Some had axes, some had swords, and some had clubs with jagged spikes.

There was no gore attached to them. No rotted muscle or skin, no bits of entrails, no sinew to hold them together.

"The hell?"

The skeletons all faced her, chittering with every move as their joints produced a series of clacks. It took her only a bare instant to realize their intent.

"Shit!"

She thrust herself backwards, stooping down to sweep up the sword belonging to the one she'd already destroyed, and as though that was some kind of signal, the army of skeletons _surged._

She swung out at the closest one and struck it with enough force to send the bones flying. They scattered and clattered and fell with a sound like a cross between a piece of wood snapping and bowling pins being knocked over.

"The hell _are_ these things?"

As they approached, she swung again and destroyed another one. Undeterred, the rest kept coming, and she pushed herself back and out of their reach, trying to keep all of them in her sight. In the back, more rose out of the ground to replace the ones she'd…killed wasn't the right word, but it was the only one she had.

"More of them?!"

This was serious zombie apocalypse shit. But these things, there was no way they were humans or some kind of prank. That first one would've killed her, if she hadn't ducked. These were minions, which means this had to be the work of some kind of Master.

She cast her gaze around quickly, dodging backwards whenever one of the skeletons came too close, but the lights were off all over the street, except for a handful of streetlamps. No one was standing in their room with the lights on and watching her, and there were no mysterious figures on one of the rooftops staring down at her. In fact, now that she looked around, the skeletons were only coming up out of…one…yard…

Dully, Sophia Hess came to a realization: Taylor Hebert was a cape.

A sudden rage surged up inside of her, the world tilting on its side and turning white, and she swung out with a growl at another one of the skeleton minions, sending the bones scattering. It didn't really make her feel any better — it wasn't alive, for one thing.

No way. No _fucking_ way.

That wimp, _that wimp_ , so afraid of her own shadow that she never fought back, was a _cape_? Taylor _fucking_ Hebert, who didn't have a single ounce of courage and no backbone to speak of, was a _parahuman_? That little _weakling_?

It didn't make sense. It ran counter to everything that Sophia Hess knew to be true, everything that she had always believed without a shadow of a doubt. The sky was blue, grass was green, the earth was round, and Taylor Hebert was a weak, little _nothing_ who would never have the strength to be anything other than Sophia's personal punching bag.

She was _not_ a cape, and she would never _be_ a cape, because capes were strong, were people who faced the darkest parts of the festering bag of shit that was life and _rose up in spite of it_ , even if they became wimpy and weak later on. They were everything Taylor Hebert _wasn't_. Therefore, Taylor Hebert simply _could not_ be a cape.

And if the situation was different, maybe Sophia could have convinced herself that was true. Maybe she could have convinced herself that she was right and Taylor Hebert could never be a cape. However, the proof was staring her straight in the face, was taking swipes at her with weapons made of bone and snapping at her with mouths full of sharp, crocodile teeth.

Sophia felt her lips twist up into a grin as she shattered another minion. They just seemed to keep coming, and even though they weren't enough of a threat that she couldn't just blow them apart with a well-aimed punch, sheer numbers alone made them annoying, at the very least.

She'd just had a _wonderful_ idea.

The original plan was shot all to hell, that much was obvious. With this many minions pouring out to fight her, there was no way the cape responsible for them — Taylor Hebert — didn't know she was coming. That was how Masters worked, wasn't it? They commanded their minions from the shadows, like a puppet master pulling the strings.

Briefly, Sophia had a thought about how fitting it was that a girl who could never be strong enough to fight for herself would get a power that allowed her to summon minions to fight for her. Because _of fucking course_ that would be the kind of power a weakling like Hebert would have.

Anyway, it just made things easier. Sophia could admit that her original plan had been quite a bit riskier and relied on a whole bunch of stuff going just right — not that she would have been caught, either way, but some lucky idiot with a smartphone could've made things difficult for her — but the new idea running through her head was a _much_ better one.

Forget the cutting her hair idea. If Hebert knew she was there, knew enough to send minions to stop her, then Sophia would just have to kill her outright, and when she called it in, told Miss Piggy about the whole thing, she'd say she'd been out patrolling solo (maybe following up on a rumor she'd heard in school or something; you know, really sell it) when she'd been attacked by an unknown Master. She'd spin a heroic tale about how she'd tried to do it peacefully, but she'd run out of tranquilizer bolts by the time she'd finally fought her way through the endless horde of minions, and oh, it was a tragedy, but she'd been forced to use one of her emergency backup (coincidentally, lethal) bolts to finally take down the Master: Taylor Hebert, a weird, friendless loner from her school who had a completely unjustified grudge against Sophia.

Oh yeah, picture _fucking_ perfect. All wrapped up, tied neatly with a bow. Piggy might bench her for a week or two, maybe shout her up and down the office, but at the end of the day, Hebert would be gone and Sophia would get a feather in her cap for taking down a villainous new Master, and hey, if Hebert's father happened to get killed by one of her minions in the process, then Sophia was even more of a hero, wasn't she?

 _Fucking A_.

Sophia charged forward, excitement rushing through her veins and pooling in her stomach, and towards the house. The sword fell from her fingers, discarded as excess weight. All she had to do was find Hebert, and then she could enact her little story, and without anyone else to say otherwise, things would be golden.

Another of the minions came towards her, pulling its arm back to swing its bone sword, but rather than fight it, Sophia shifted into shadow form and kept going. She was already imagining the look on Emma's face, the laughs they'd share, when the sharpened blade of bone slid right through her like she wasn't even —

"Hu — ?"

A strange sense of numbness overcame Sophia, and with a jolt, she watched her legs go spinning off to one side while gravity pulled her to the other. She had a single instant to register red blood on white bone, glistening in the moonlight, as her momentum caused her to tumble towards the ground. She had a single moment to feel the surge of muted pain that lanced up her spinal cord, the peculiar sensation of her stomach sinking, and the jarring thud as her torso hit the ground.

The last thing she saw before her vision went black was the rest of her, everything from her hips down, collapsing to the grass several feet away.

 **Bad End 1**

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

 **Note: All Bad Ends are canon to the story. The consequences of this chapter will be felt through the rest of AEoSaS.**

 **As always, read, review, and enjoy.**

 **And for early access to chapters and bonus content:**

 **p a treon . com (slash) James_D_Fawkes**


	14. Disillusion 2-5

**Disillusion 2.5**

Tuesday morning dawned bright and crisp and clear, and I woke up feeling surprisingly chipper. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, all was right with the world…

Okay, so not really, but it certainly felt that way. Yesterday had been surprisingly good, for how crappy it had started out — Lisa and I had spent the rest of the afternoon just…hanging out. We got to see Parian's puppet show — for lack of a better term — we took a stroll along the Boardwalk and chatted about inane, unimportant things, although Lisa did most of the talking. At the end of it, we'd spent maybe half an hour just sitting on a bench, people-watching.

It'd been kind of disappointing to have to go home after just about an hour of that. I finally had a friend after almost two years completely alone, and in spite of myself, I hadn't wanted to say goodbye to her so soon.

"Let me know when you decide to get a cellphone," she'd said just before she left. "And if you ever need anything, you have my number, okay?"

It was…nice, having a friend. Emma had been basically my only friend my entire life, and when she turned on me, she'd done her level best since then to prevent me from making any other ones. No one wanted to risk being your friend when it meant turning themselves into a target for Winslow's queen bitch.

To have someone who either didn't know about that or didn't care, who Emma couldn't frighten off by threatening to make her life in school hell… It felt really good.

Of course, that wasn't the only good thing that had happened yesterday, was it? After all, I'd stood up to Sophia, gave her a tongue lashing like something out of a comic book, and not only had I gotten away with it, I'd gotten away with it in front of all of her friends. No punches, no immediate reprisal — I'd lambasted her with all of the pent up feelings that had been churning inside of me for nearly a year (with Medea along to help, of course), and Sophia had backed down.

Well, catch 22. Whatever she'd done, she would've lost. If she'd punched me, she would've proven me right. If she'd backed down, it meant admitting defeat. I wasn't even sure how I managed it, but I'd put her in a corner that she had no real way out from.

And she'd backed down. I wasn't stupid; my social skills might have been malnourished because of the torment I'd suffered at Emma's hands, but I still knew at least enough to understand that there was a power dynamic in school and it had just been _shifted_. What was that line from that popular Aleph movie? If you can make God bleed? Something like that.

When I combined both of those with the beatdown I'd given Lung and the praise I'd received from Armsmaster and Miss Militia, it wouldn't be all that much of an exaggeration to say that yesterday had been the best day I'd had in a long time. What kind of cosmic lottery had I won, that so many good things had all happened within the same twenty-four hour period?

That was why I shut off my alarm gently, rather than slapping the snooze button like it owed me money. It was why I smiled into my pillow, enjoying the aftermath of the eight long hours I'd spent in my enchanted bed, and felt more rested and rejuvenated than I had at any point in the past four months, let alone the past two years.

For a bit of context, sleeping in my bed for three hours, give or take, was enough to count for a full night's sleep, and anything past that was strictly unnecessary padding. That padding, though, while it didn't technically count towards how well-rested I woke up, did speed up the rate at which injuries healed. It was more of a side effect — wounds healed faster during sleep, and since the bed was enchanted to increase the effects of sleeping, every three hours spent asleep in it had the same effect on physical recovery as a full night's sleep.

So, as I rolled out of bed, any lingering aches and pains I might have had from fighting Lung, even if I hadn't noticed them before, were gone.

For a few minutes, I just stood there in the middle of my room, wide awake and grinning like a loon. I felt good. Really good. I felt lighter than air and twice as buoyant, like if I let myself go, I'd just float to the ceiling, and if a stiff breeze happened to blow me through an open window, I'd just keeping going up until I reached the clouds.

And aside from Lung the night before last, the only things I'd done yesterday were stand up for myself against my bullies and make a tentative friend.

I shook my head and tried to fight down the grin, but all I managed to do was turn it into a smile, if much smaller and less manic. As good as I felt about what had happened yesterday, I did still things to do, like going for a run, and responsibilities to keep, like…school.

Yeah. Okay. The thought of what would be waiting for me wasn't quite enough to ruin my good mood entirely, but it was enough to knock me back down a peg or two. I was going to be paying for mouthing off to Emma and Sophia yesterday; it was a tossup of whether or not they'd escalate too much farther past their normal antics, although if they tried something like the Locker again, there was no way I was going to let that go quietly.

First, though, before I could worry about that, I had a run that I was supposed to be going on.

By the time I'd pulled on a pair of sweats and made my way downstairs, Dad was already in the kitchen, dressed in a bathrobe and the pair of slippers he'd worn yesterday, halfway through making breakfast.

"Good morning, Taylor," he said.

Maybe it was because I'd been in a good mood the last few days, but on impulse, I walked over to him and gave him a quick hug, careful to mind the stove. He gave a startled laugh, and as I was pulling away, he looped his arm around me, pulled me back in for another few seconds, and kissed the crown of my head as he let me go.

"You certainly seem like you're in a good mood again," he said, smiling. "What's your secret? Mellow Jazz? Bongo drums? Huge bag of weed? Can I have some?"

It felt a little…off, maybe forced, like he was trying too hard to make a joke, but I responded to it like I hadn't noticed it.

"Dad!" I said, scandalized.

Dad just laughed, a rich, booming sound the belied his weak chin and his thinning hair, and in that moment, he looked more alive than he had since Mom died.

"Oh, honey, my generation was much worse, let me tell you," he said, grinning. "Why, some of the stories I have…about your mother, too!"

"I don't need to hear about what you and Mom got up to in college," I said, trying not to smile as I pulled on my shoes. "Especially _those_ kinds of stories — yuck."

"Those kinds of stories are the reason you're here, remember," Dad told me. "In fact, I'm pretty sure I remember what night it was, too…"

"Dad, no, just…no."

Dad laughed again, but it was a little more somber than it was before. He was remembering Mom again, no doubt. If ever there was a surefire way to make Dad wistful and sad, it was talking about Mom. Of course; the both of us had a hole in our lives the exact size and shape of Annette Hebert, and even time could only soften the edges of it.

"I just had a good day yesterday," I said, changing the subject. "That's all."

"Oh?" He glanced over at me. "Because of that girl you mentioned last night, what's her name — Lisa?"

"Yeah, that's her."

"Well, I'm glad you're making friends again. Just give me a heads up before you throw any wild parties, so I know when I should work late."

"Da-ad!"

Dad chuckled for a minute, then quieted for a few seconds. "Seriously, Taylor, I'm happy for you," he said. "It's good to see you making friends, and if you need my help with anything, even if that's driving you across the city to meet up with Lisa, I'd be glad to do it."

For a long moment, I didn't say anything, and I thought of what Lisa had said, about the note in my room with her screenname and phone number on it. _When_ , she'd said, not _if_. I bit my lip, wondering if I should say something, then, tentatively, I asked, "Even if that meant getting a cellphone?"

Dad froze. I understood why. Cellphones had been involved in Mom's crash, were, you could argue, the entire reason why she was dead, and Dad and I hadn't gotten one since then, even though they were everywhere and everyone else in the world seemed to have one. And ever since Emma had turned on me, prevented me from having any friends, I hadn't had a reason to get one. Even if Mom's death hadn't put me off of them, I didn't consider it at all unlikely that Emma might steal it and destroy it or something, and after what she'd said yesterday, I didn't put it beyond her to use it as a tool to taunt me over my mother's death.

Of course, _now_ I had methods of preventing that. Medea made protecting it child's play. I could hide it so thoroughly that the only time anyone would ever know I had it was when I used it, and even then, there were ways I could make it so that they ignored me when I was. The only reason I hadn't done something like that for myself in my day to day life at Winslow was that someone would eventually notice something was amiss and probably call the PRT to investigate, and that was…yeah.

At length, Dad said, "I'd have to check and see what we could afford, but yes, even then." Quietly, I heard him add, "It's probably about time _I_ see about getting one, too."

Again, it wasn't hard to imagine why he was so hesitant about it. We shared that wound.

"Thanks, Dad." Which is why I knew how big a deal it was for him to even consider it.

Dad turned to me and offered a wan smile, before going back to finish breakfast.

A few minutes later, he came over to the table with meals for both of us — eggs and bacon; never let it be said that Dad was an inventive cook — and we ate mostly in silence. I thought I might have ruined the mood, having brought up such a sensitive subject, but I had a friend for the first time in a long time, and a cellphone would be a convenient way of keeping in touch with her. Certainly faster than going back and forth on PHO with our old, slow computer.

I finished eating long before Dad did, and I thought it was probably because he was doing a bit of brooding over Mom, again. I left him to his thoughts as I took my plate to the sink, and then, trying to be quiet, I started towards the door so I could leave for my run.

Dad's voice stopped me. "You have your pepper spray?"

"Yes, Dad," I replied.

I opened the door.

"Be safe, Taylor."

I smiled a little. "Sure, Dad."

Then, I was out the door, I turned, and I started to cut across our lawn — and I froze.

Red, green, black — it took a moment for the image to register in my brain, because this was a scene that did not belong on my front lawn. The red was the red of blood and a lot of it, dried now to a rusty maroon color that seeped across the ground. The green was the green of the grass, untouched and pristine, but for the places where the red blood stained it. The black was the color of the cloth, settled into two large lumps, each roughly the size of half a person, lying on the ground in two separate spots.

It was a few moments more before my brain really started to catch up to my eyes, and then I started noticing the finer details of the scene — the second lump, over to the left, was actually a pair of legs, tangled together as though they had tripped over each other, which meant that the bit hanging out there was —

Oh God.

That meant that the first lump, which I looked at now, was the torso, and now that I realized that, I could see the vague swells that had to be her bust, disguised by the hoodie she wore. The black cloak was thankfully tangled messily around the viscera, blocking it from view, but the hood of it had halfway fallen away, revealing a metallic hockey mask and a few inches of dark skin, pale in death, and black hair that seemed somehow familiar.

It wasn't until my eyes alighted on the crossbow that must have dropped from her fingers when she fell that I realized who it was that was lying on my lawn.

That was about when I screamed.

I wasn't ashamed to admit that it was long and loud and probably woke up half the neighborhood, nor that it would have guaranteed me a spot in a horror flick if I'd been attractive enough to be a movie star. I was still screaming when Dad came rushing out of the house maybe fifteen seconds later.

"Taylor!" he shouted. "Taylor, what's —"

He must have caught sight of what I saw about the time I lost the breath to keep screaming, because he cut off before he finished.

"Oh God," he said, sounding somewhat frantic. "Oh fuck. Oh — Taylor, come here!"

He spun me around and pulled me towards him, and after a moment of looking me over for injuries, he held me against his chest so that I couldn't look back and see the corpse.

"Don't look, Taylor," he murmured into my ear. "Don't look."

My brain rebooted a minute later. All the gruesome details arose in my mind's eye, seared onto my brain like a branding iron, and then my stomach roiled, and I had to force my way out of Dad's arms so I could rush over to the nearest bush and empty my breakfast out onto the grass. It was like I was trying to purge myself of the image of the body, but no matter how much bile spewed from my mouth, it wouldn't leave my head.

It was a bare moment later before Dad came up next to me, pulling my hair out of my face and rubbing soothing circles around my back like he had when I'd caught the flu several years back. I didn't think I'd ever been more grateful to him in my life.

Even once there was nothing left in my stomach to throw back up, I dry-heaved for what felt like several hours. For one wild moment, I had a thought about how much of a pain in the ass it was going to be to clean these shoes, now.

"Are you okay?" Dad asked once I was done and gasping for breath. I swallowed around the taste of vomit and turned my head to reply, but Dad grimaced as though berating himself for his own stupidity. "What am I saying? Of course you aren't."

He glanced back at the…mess and went even paler than he'd been before.

"Gonna have to call the police," he murmured.

"PRT," I corrected him hoarsely.

His head swiveled back around. "What?"

"The PRT, not the police," I said a little more strongly. "That's Shadow Stalker, one of the Wards."

Dad managed to sum up both the situation and my feelings about it in two words. "Oh fuck."

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

By the time the PRT arrived in the same white vans I'd seen just a day ago, the entire neighborhood had come out of their homes and everyone within five houses in either direction was peering towards us from their dewy front lawns, dressed in bathrobes and slippers. They were all murmuring and gossiping, but none of them seemed brave enough to come over for a closer look or to offer their support.

I was still staring out at the scene when the PRT vans pulled up along the sidewalk, but I wasn't really seeing either the body or the troopers who were securing it. I didn't even notice when the BBPD showed up, too, no doubt called by one of our other neighbors.

No, how could I focus on any of that? Shadow Stalker was dead on my front lawn, and _I_ was the one who killed her.

My stomach roiled again at the thought, but my mouth was dry and tasted of sick, and there was nothing left in my stomach to heave up.

It was the only conclusion I could come to. A serious cape battle, serious enough that Shadow Stalker, whose power should have allowed her to escape any blow one-on-one, had been sheared in half like cheap tissue, would have been loud and noticeable, would have woken up not only me, but probably half the block. If she'd been fighting someone like Cricket or Hookwolf, there was no way it would have passed quietly enough to entirely escape notice.

Unless she was inside my bounded field.

That was the other problem. Of all the capes in Brockton Bay, none of the ones I knew about really used a cutting weapon that would have bisected a person in one, clean strike. Hookwolf would have left dozens of other cuts, and the end result would have been more like tossing Shadow Stalker into a blender than the two, neat halves lying on the lawn. Cricket, maybe, but what little I knew about her from her wiki page said she used a pair of kama, and their size combined with the sheer upper body strength I had to imagine was necessary to actually cut a person completely in half…I couldn't see her being responsible for this, either.

My Dragon Teeth, on the other hand, wielded large broadswords, and while they weren't strong enough to fight Lung, they _were_ about as strong as an Olympic lifter. They had both the reach and the strength to pull it off.

Then, there was the hardest piece of evidence to ignore: she was on _my_ front lawn.

The defenses I had set up on my house, back when I started to worry about being attacked in my civilian identity, consisted of three stages: first deterrent, which was a bounded field that induced a feeling of foreboding, kind of like, "you don't want to go any further, or bad things will happen," then the second deterrent, which was my Dragon Teeth, and they were designed to fight and defend the house if the intruder couldn't be scared off, and the third defense was a total overhaul of the house itself. Anyone that managed to get through the first two defenses would find the front door and the whole house an impenetrable fortress, and the mere act of _trying_ to get in would sound an alarm to wake me up.

The trick of it, though, and the reason why we didn't find strays or the neighbor's pet cat dead on the front lawn every morning was because all of these defenses would only trigger if the intruder intended to _hurt_ me or my dad. And not just as a passing thought, but as a commitment to cause harm.

Admittedly, that was where everything kind of…stalled. Why would _Shadow Stalker_ , a _hero_ , want to hurt me or Dad? I could think of half a dozen reasons, but they all required that she had a mindset like Lung and knew that I was Apocrypha, which is why most of them were stupid and made no sense.

Unless she knew me in my civilian identity, not my (not-even-two-days-old) Apocrypha identity? But that made even _less_ sense. Where would I have met _Shadow Stalker_ , a hero, and what could I have done to her that made her want to hurt me? What could I have done to a _hero_ that pissed her off enough for her to come after me in my own home?

Of course, Shadow Stalker _was_ a bit edgy. Unlike the other Wards, who were all bright colors and friendly smiles, she was all harsh lines and more black cloth than even the most committed of Winslow's goths. In the stuff she'd been in, the group photos and things like that, she'd given off that stern, anti-hero vibe, complete with a scowling, and frankly a little scary, mask.

But, well, still. Why me? Or Dad, even. Why either of us? Why —

"Mister Hebert, Miss Hebert," a voice said, tearing me from my thoughts. I blinked and beheld a…honestly, a hunk. He was tall, taller than me by about a head and some change, and he had a strong jaw and a face that looked like it could have been chiseled in the image of one of the Greek gods. Broad shoulders, well-muscled arms that looked like they belonged on a professional athlete, and quite honestly, a body that could have been sculpted by Michelangelo.

The blue eyes were worth mentioning, too. They were dangerous — a girl could really fall for those baby blues.

He offered a friendly smile and his hand first to Dad, then to me. I shook it absentmindedly; behind him, I caught a glance of a police cordon set up around our yard, sectioning off an area about fifteen feet across and ten deep, starting at the edge and stretching inwards, around Shadow Stalker's body.

"I'm Detective Neville, I work for the PRT," the man said. "I understand you found the body and recognized it as Shadow Stalker?"

"Ah, no," said Dad. "That was Taylor, actually. I just called the PRT."

Detective Neville turned his head my way. "Miss Hebert?"

"I, uh, yeah," I said, feeling a little lost. "I, uh, came out to the front yard and found her there."

"So you were the one who discovered the body?"

"Yeah."

He scribbled a little note on a notepad I noticed in his other hand just then. When he was done, he looked back up at me. "And how did you recognize her as Shadow Stalker?"

"It's, uh, not her official costume," I replied, "but the black cloak and the crossbow are…kind of distinctive."

"I see." He made another note in his notepad. "And how was it you came across the body? Heading to school?"

"For a run, actually. I take one every morning, whenever I can. I was just heading out when I saw, uh, when I saw…her."

"I see." He gave me a sympathetic smile. "I'm sorry you had to see something like that. You were the one who screamed, then?"

I nodded. "Yeah. It was… Well…"

Horrifying. Lung had been bearable, because Siegfried had given me the calm and the experience to keep my head among the gore and the violence, but without that to temper everything…

"I understand." He turned to Dad. "And I assume that that was when you…?"

"I heard her scream and I came running," Dad said. He glanced at me. "She, ah…well…"

"I threw up," I supplied. "Over in the bushes."

Detective Neville grimaced. I wondered if someone was going to have to go and collect that as evidence; I didn't envy them that job.

"That's a perfectly natural reaction," he assured me. "And, Mister Hebert, that was when you called the PRT?"

"After I made sure Taylor was okay, yes. I was going to call the police, at first, but Taylor told me to call the PRT, so…"

"And it's a good thing you did," said Detective Neville. "Jurisdiction between us and the BBPD can get pretty messy on its own, so it was better that we got here before they processed the scene and contaminated any evidence of parahuman ability use."

He jotted a few more things down on his notepad.

"Alright," he said. "That's all of the preliminary stuff out of the way. We _will_ need to take your official witness statement, however, for the record. Miss Hebert — Taylor," he addressed me, not unkindly, "would you be all right to come back to headquarters with me?"

Dad took a step forward, as though to shield me. "Wait a minute. You can't ask her anything without me present, can you?"

"No, we can't, Mister Hebert," Detective Neville replied. "That's why I'd like to ask you to stay here while CSU finishes up and then drive over to PRT HQ. I just think that Taylor might be more comfortable with a cup of hot chocolate and away from — well…"

He glanced back over his shoulder for a second, at the spot where Shadow Stalker's body had lain. I did, too, and I found that though her two halves had apparently been loaded up onto a gurney while we were talking, the grass was still stained a reddish brown, a large splotch amongst the green that stretched between both of the places where her halves had been. Somehow, it was worse than before, because just the thought of what — _who_ — had been lying there and the inescapable conclusion I'd come to about how she'd died was enough to make me nauseous.

Something of my discomfort must have shown on my face, because Dad grimaced, nodded, and said, "Yeah, okay, I…Taylor, if you're comfortable with it, I'd like you to go with them, for now. I'll be right behind you, I promise."

I gave a little nod and swallowed around the nausea. "Yeah," I said, a little quieter than I'd meant to, "okay."

How was I going to explain this, though? How did you tell the PRT and the Protectorate that one of their heroes, one of their junior heroes, at that, was lying dead on your front lawn because she'd tried to kill you and your home defense system had taken exception to that? How did you explain that and also explain that you had no idea _why_ she'd been after you in the first place?

As I followed Detective Neville off the porch and down the stone pathway that cut through our yard, I glanced back at Dad, who watched me with worried eyes, and realized that I'd have to think of a way, a way of explaining this whole mess to the people who might be my coworkers in the near future. And I'd have to do it without getting myself arrested.

Easier said than done.

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

 **As always, read, review, and enjoy.**

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 **p a treon . com (slash) James_D_Fawkes**


	15. Disillusion 2-6

**Disillusion 2.6**

The ride to PRTHQ was carried out in almost complete silence. Detective Neville made a grand total of one attempt at engaging me in conversation, but he seemed to sense my mood and how distracted I was and decided after that to not bother me.

It might have been better if I _had_ let him distract me. All I could think about was that image of Shadow Stalker's body on my front lawn, shorn in half, and no matter how hard I tried to think of a way to _explain_ that, to tell the PRT what had happened without making myself out as some villain, my mind kept going back to that image and the question to which I still didn't have an answer: why?

Why was she on my front lawn? Why had she tried to attack me or my dad? Why hadn't she turned back when she had the chance? And why, _why_ , had I thought that her hair seemed familiar to me?

I couldn't answer it. I couldn't answer any of it. It was like trying to solve a puzzle with all of the most important pieces missing.

Those thoughts, spiraling in, on, and back around to each other, followed me the whole way. When we arrived at PRTHQ and Detective Neville led me inside and through the winding corridors, they distracted me, and I didn't have enough focus, enough presence of mind, to pay any attention to our surroundings. If I'd been there for any other reason, my head probably would've been on a swivel as I tried to look at everything at once, but as it was, the only thing I paid any mind to was Detective Neville's back and my own whirling thoughts.

He took me to a conference room, was even polite enough to pull a chair out for me to take a seat in, then he left and came back a few minutes later with a notepad, a pen, and a steaming mug of hot chocolate. "In case you want to order your thoughts," he told me. "Some people find it helps keep everything straight and fresh."

After that, I was left alone again to think about what had happened. A part of me had thought they might send a hero, like Miss Militia or Armsmaster (and wouldn't that have been a thing, to see him again, only outside the costume?), to keep me company, maybe try to help me calm down or something. But minutes passed, and no hero knocked at the door to say hello and offer me sympathy for a traumatic experience.

Instead, I sat there, head propped up with one hand and idly playing with the pen with the other, lost in thought as the clock on the far wall ticked noisily away. All I could do was frown; no matter how much I tried to think of how to explain this whole situation to the PRT, I kept running into that wall of "why." I couldn't focus on anything else, because everything eventually led back in that direction. "Why." If I tried to tell them what I knew, that conclusion I'd inescapably come to, they'd eventually ask that, too.

"Why." I still wasn't any closer to figuring it out myself, and it wasn't like I could raise her from the dead and ask Shadow Stalker herself why she'd tried to break into my house and hurt me or Dad.

For a second, I stopped.

Or maybe there wasn't a "why."

That thought chilled me.

I'd been so sure of myself when I'd set up those bounded fields. Medea's knowledge was mine when I Installed her, the same as it was with any of my other casters. With that knowledge, I'd set up my defenses so that Dad and I were protected from anyone who tried to come after my civilian identity for anything I'd done as a cape. I'd been so absolutely certain that everything was done and ready and perfect that I hadn't bothered to check and recheck them after I was finished setting them up. Intent-based defenses that activated whenever anyone tried to attack my house and the people inside it — no dogs would be killed for leaving a present in the grass, no strays zapped for digging through the trash, no mailmen splattered for delivering a bill.

And when none of that had happened, when, two weeks after they were done, I hadn't gone out in the morning to find a mangy old cat drawn and quartered on the front lawn, I'd been satisfied. They were done and working as intended.

But…what if they weren't?

Shadow Stalker was notoriously edgy and violent. No amount of shine and polish after joining the Wards could erase the stories on PHO about the days before she'd become one, of the criminals she'd beat up and the bones she'd broke.

So, what if Shadow Stalker had just been in the neighborhood, I didn't know, following a lead or something? What if she'd just been one, big ball of violent intent? I knew there were days when I felt that way, coming off of one of the Trio's nastier pranks. So, what if Shadow Stalker, angry and violent and wanting to hurt somebody, had simply passed through my bounded field that way, and when she encountered my Dragon Teeth, she decided to work off some steam and beat up a Master she thought had just attacked her?

Hell, what if she didn't even have a _chance_ to think about what was happening before one of my Dragon Teeth had cut her down?

If something like that had happened, there wouldn't _be_ a why, would there? Shadow Stalker would've just been a victim of circumstance, a girl in the wrong place at the wrong time dealing with the wrong problems. It could be that easy, that tragically simple. I'd killed someone who'd had nothing to do with me.

Could it…really happen that way, though? I didn't think so, but then I couldn't really be sure, could I? Without one of my casters, I was just as ignorant of my bounded fields' functionalities as anyone else; the only advantages I had were that I knew what they were _supposed_ to do and I knew they existed in the first place.

If I could just Install Medea or Solomon or Circe and reexamine them to make sure…but that would only have worked if I'd done it before anyone else found the body; if I wanted to be sure after this, I'd have to wait until night to check them out.

But the possibility was nauseating. A hero had lost her life to my defenses, and she might have been killed only because she'd been angry and confrontational as she was passing by my house. It was enough to make my stomach churn and my head spin, and if I hadn't already thrown up before, I might have had to rush to the nearest bathroom or wastebin to heave up whatever was in my stomach, but as it was, I had only the hot chocolate, which tasted now like ash in my mouth.

If that was it, then I might have convinced myself then and there that I was a murderer who had accidentally killed a hero…but it wasn't. There was still a nagging thought that sputtered weakly among the nausea and the guilt: why did I recognize her hair? Why was I so convinced that I'd seen it before, in person and not in a picture?

Was I just delusional? Grasping at straws, at the smallest of coincidences, just so I could tell myself that I wasn't guilty, that there was still something here that I didn't see? Was it just paranoia honed through months of torment at my own personal torturers? Was it nothing more than my imagination?

Or…was there something —

The door suddenly swung open.

"— here, Mister Hebert."

Dad stepped into the room, head swiveling around to take it in, and then his eyes met mine and something like relief washed over his face. "Taylor!"

"Dad!"

I was standing as I spoke, but Dad was quicker, and he'd already crossed the room and swept me into a hug before I could even think about doing anything. It took me a couple of seconds to bring my own arms up and wrap them around him. I barely noticed as the door clicked shut, again.

A long moment passed, then Dad pulled back and held me at arms' length.

"How are you feeling?" He asked. He shook his head and kept going before I could even open my mouth. "No, that's still a dumb question. That… _that_ isn't the sort of thing you just shake off, after all. I know _I'm_ going to be having nightmares for a while; won't be able to get any sleep tonight, that's for sure —"

"Dad!" I cut him off. "Dad! I'm…"

The image of Shadow Stalker's body rose up in my mind again and the word choked in my throat — no matter how I sliced it, _I_ was responsible for that, _my_ defenses were the ones that had killed her.

"I'm fine," I managed at last. "Really, I am."

Dad gave me a weak smile. "We both know what 'fine' means," he said.

I rolled my eyes almost on reflex. Dad's favorite movie import from Aleph was _The Italian Job_ ; before… _Mom_ , he'd loved quoting it at me and her, and I hadn't heard him use it since we'd lost her.

"Freaked-out, Insecure, Neurotic, and Emotional," I recited.

For a moment, Dad's weak smile gained just a little bit of strength, but it was gone again almost immediately. He gave my arms a comforting squeeze.

"Are you sure you're okay?"

"I…" I stopped and took a moment to order my thoughts. "This whole thing is seriously messed up, but I'm fi… I'm okay. Just…shaken, I guess."

I needed to know, though. I needed to know whether it was just an accident, a mistake in the way I'd programmed the bounded fields, and if that accident had killed a hero, a _girl my age_ , or if…if there was something else going on, whatever that might be. I needed to know whether I was actually _guilty_ , or if this nagging feeling that bothered me more and more every minute actually _meant_ something.

Dad held my gaze for another minute or two, looking for the lie, if I had to guess, and it took all of my self-control not to turn away guiltily.

"Taylor," he began.

At that moment, though, the door swung back open, and another man came in, a detective, by the badge hanging from his belt, maybe a decade older and somewhat flabbier than Detective Neville. I noticed, in his arms, he carried a bunch of folders and a notepad, and in one hand, there was a steaming mug of coffee — Starchild brand, from the logo; I'd never been, because it was way too expensive.

"Good morning," he said perfunctorily. I felt Dad let me go.

The detective closed the door with his foot, tossed the notepad and folders to land on the table in front of the chair across from where I'd been sitting, then switched his coffee to his other hand and held it out to Dad.

"Detective Chase," he introduced himself. Dad took his hand and shook it.

Then, Detective Chase offered it to me, and after a moment, I took it and shook it, too.

"Mister Daniel and Miss Taylor Hebert, right?"

"Uh, yeah," said Dad. "That's us."

"Right, right, good," said the detective. "And you're here to give witness statements about the…the Shadow Stalker murder case, right?"

"Yes," Dad said slowly, like he wasn't quite sure why it was even a question. I wasn't, either.

"Right, yes, of course you are, of course you are," said Detective Chase.

"Shouldn't…Detective Neville be the one doing this?" Dad asked. "Please don't take this the wrong way, but, um, you, uh, don't seem to know what you're doing here?"

Thank you, Dad, for voicing what we were both thinking. Compared to Detective Neville, Detective Chase seemed scatterbrained and a bit clueless, like someone had just handed him a folder and told him, 'Go here and take their witness statements.' No other instructions or preparations.

"It's fine." Detective Chase waved it off casually. "Detective Neville lacks certain, eh, _credentials_ to be taking your official statement, so they had to find somebody on short notice who _did_ have them and give him a quick, short debrief about the situation — in this case, me. I probably come off a bit ditzy, but I _did_ just find out about all of this, what, maybe ten minutes ago? I only had time to skim over the on-scene report, so I've got the general gist, but not the fine details."

"Oh," Dad said lamely.

What Dad said. Oh.

That…kind of made me curious, though. Detective Neville had struck me as prompt, professional, compassionate, and with a strong head on his shoulders, whereas Detective Chase kind of…didn't, like this was a job he had to do rather than a career he was passionate about.

So, in a choice between the two, what was so important that they'd picked one over the other for this?

"What credentials?" I asked.

"Beg your pardon?"

"You said Detective Neville lacks the credentials to be here doing this," I clarified. "What did you mean by that?"

Detective Chase's lips pursed, and for a moment, he didn't answer. "It's PRT policy that only a minimum number of people know a given hero's secret identity at any given time," he said. "You've seen a movie or a tv show where the police arrest a guy in the mob, only to find out he's an undercover agent for the FBI?"

"I guess."

"It's kind of like that," said Detective Chase. "A secret is easier to keep if only those who need to know about it actually know it. Same applies for secret identities: aside the Director and Deputy Director, only a handful of guys in the PRT know who the heroes are under the mask. Better infosec — that's information security — that way."

"And you know Shadow Stalker's identity, but Detective Neville doesn't," I concluded.

Detective Chase nodded.

"That'd be about the size of it, yeah. Since it's easier to brief me on the situation than it would be to get Detective Neville up to speed about Shadow Stalker, I got handed the job."

He gestured to the table and the chairs arrayed around it. "Now, if you'd please take a seat, we can get started. This shouldn't take more than an hour or two; we should be done in time for lunch."

"What about…" Dad asked. "Can we go back home?"

"As soon as CSU finishes up," Detective Chase confirmed. "In fact, they'll probably be done before we are, and if they aren't and they need to work through the night, then the PRT will gladly put you and your daughter up in a nearby hotel for as long as it takes."

"Oh. Thank you."

After that, Dad sat down without another word, and so did I. Detective Chase had to go around the long way, around the other end of the long conference table, to take his seat across from us.

"Before we begin," said Detective Chase, "I'm obligated to inform you that this conversation will be recorded for our official records." He tapped the center of the table, where there was a raised piece of black plastic, complete with what looked like a pair of built-in speakers. "In light of that, while we encourage you to be honest and complete in your answers, unless we suspect that whatever you're withholding is vital to our investigation, you don't actually have to tell us everything. Do you understand?"

Dad's lips thinned and I could see he wasn't exactly happy about that, but he still agreed. "Yes."

They both turned to look at me and I gave a nod.

"I'm afraid I'll need a verbal response, Miss Hebert."

"Yes," I said.

"Good," said Detective Chase. "One other thing, then, before we begin. Depending on how this whole thing goes, we might need to ask you both to sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement."

"An NDA?" Dad demanded suddenly. "Why?"

"Some of the questions I might have to ask you may deal with Shadow Stalker's civilian identity," Detective Chase answered reasonably. "That's a very thorny subject, and the PRT and Protectorate tend to err on the side of caution when it comes to heroes and their lives outside the mask, especially for the Wards. With that in mind, if I have to let you in on the secret, then I may need to secure…let's call it a legally binding promise."

"Is it really that big a deal?" asked Dad. "We couldn't just agree to keep it a secret?"

"I'm afraid not," said Detective Chase. "Like I said, the PRT and Protectorate take this issue very seriously. Not only are the Wards and the heroes at stake, but so are their families, and even though Shadow Stalker is…no longer with us, her family is still entitled to protection from retaliation for any enemies she might have made. An NDA is par for the course, with this issue."

"Oh," said Dad.

I didn't say anything. Lisa had just explained the Unwritten Rules to me yesterday, so I'd kind of already understood why it was a big deal. I just hadn't realized that the PRT and the Protectorate took it this seriously, too — maybe it just hadn't quite sunk in all the way? It still felt kind of like something out of a comic book or a movie.

"Right, then." Detective Chase reached over to the black box and flipped a switch, and immediately, a little red light turned on underneath it between the two speakers — the two microphones. "It is Tuesday, April twelfth, and it is…" He looked at his watch. "Nine-oh-five AM. I am Detective Harvey Chase, conducting the interview of Mister Daniel Hebert and Miss Taylor Hebert regarding the Shadow Stalker homicide."

He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a pen.

"Now." He flipped through the notepad as he talked. "I'm gonna have to ask you to bear with me, for a minute here, as we go through what Detective Neville has written down. Miss Hebert, it says here that you were the first one on the scene?"

"Yeah," I answered, nodding. "I was."

"Going for…a morning run, is that correct?"

"Yeah. I've been going out every morning since January."

"For about three months, then."

I nodded again. "Yeah."

He scribbled something down on the notepad.

"And after you came upon the scene, you…screamed? Rather loudly, apparently."

"I did." I grimaced as the image of Shadow Stalker's grizzly corpse rose up, again. Dad reached over and gave my hand a comforting squeeze. "It was, um…"

"Very horrific, yes. I've seen the pictures."

Detective Chase flipped back through the notepad and jotted something else down. I was tempted to crane my neck and see what he was writing.

"And that was when…you, Mister Hebert," Detective Chase turned to Dad, gesturing with his pen, "came upon the scene, right?"

"Oh, um, yeah." Dad nodded. "I heard her scream and I thought…I don't know, she was being attacked? So I rushed out of the house, and that was when I saw, well…"

"The body, yes. I understand you didn't call the PRT immediately?"

"Well, of course, the first thing I was worried about was Taylor," said Dad a little defensively.

"Which is fine," Detective Chase told him calmly. "I'm not blaming you, Mister Hebert, I'm just establishing the timeline."

"Oh, uh, right." Dad's ears turned a little red at the tips. "Well, um, I was, uh, more worried about Taylor than calling the police, and she had a, uh, physical reaction to everything."

Bless Dad for trying to put it delicately, but I wasn't going to be embarrassed if he just said I puked.

"She threw up?"

"In the nearby bushes," I replied for Dad. "Dad, uh, held my hair out of my face."

Detective Chase scribbled some more. "And afterwards, you decided to call the police, but Miss Hebert told you to call the PRT instead?"

"She said that the…body belonged to Shadow Stalker," Dad said, "and that I should call the PRT, not the police, yes."

Detective Chase turned back to me. "And it says here that you recognized her by her black cloak and the crossbow she held in one hand, right?"

I nodded.

"Yeah. I…thought it was weird, because it wasn't her official costume from all the photos on PHO, but…"

"We'll be investigating that, too," said Detective Chase. "At first, we thought it might be a copycat, but fingerprint and facial recognition _did_ confirm her as Shadow Stalker. We're still waiting on DNA and dental."

A copycat? I hadn't even considered _that_ possibility — although apparently I would've been wrong even if I had.

"Alright, that's the timeline established." Detective Chase scribbled one last thing in the notepad, then flipped to what I assumed was a clean page. "Now, preliminary estimates put the time of death between midnight and three AM last night. Did either of you hear anything strange or unusual, something you might not have thought anything of when you first heard it?"

Dad and I both shook our heads.

"I'm usually in bed…pretty early, most nights," Dad said. "Around ten o'clock. I didn't hear anything unusual after that, nothing that woke me up, at least."

"Me, too," I agreed. "I'm up around six-thirty, most mornings, so I'm usually in bed by eleven."

Detective Chase frowned and pursed his lips. "No weird sounds, no strange noises?"

"Nothing."

"Not a one."

He jotted something down in the notepad.

"How about this morning? Any…markings you couldn't explain, anything that looked out of place? An overturned trashcan, bloody footprints on the sidewalk?"

"No," Dad said. "Aside from the body, everything was exactly the way it was when I came home, last night."

"No signs that maybe someone had sabotaged something or set up a trap?"

My heart skipped a beat, and it took everything I had to keep my face from betraying me. Every bit of control I had spent the last two years perfecting at Winslow went into keeping my expression the same as it had been a moment ago.

Could my defenses be counted as a trap? Maybe, but I didn't think so. Even if you stretched it and said they did, no one should have seen them until they triggered, because if everyone who rode by the house could notice they existed, it would have outed me in a heartbeat.

"No, nothing like that," said Dad.

Detective Chase turned to me. "Miss Hebert?"

"I didn't see anything like that, no," I replied.

So no, I hadn't seen any signs of a trap, because that would have defeated the point of keeping my defenses secret in the first place.

"That's consistent with the other statements from the neighbors," muttered Detective Chase. He scribbled down some more notes.

For another few minutes, Dad and I sat in silence as he went back and forth through the notepad, occasionally writing something here and there and checking a few times in whatever was in the folders he'd brought. At length, he looked back up and turned his attention towards me, again.

"Miss Hebert, you go to Winslow, right?"

"Um, yes?" I answered, bewildered. What did Winslow have to do with anything?

"You're in your sophomore year?"

"Yeah, I am."

"What does Taylor's school have to do with anything?" Dad asked, jumping in.

Detective Chase grimaced. "Well, the PRT will never confirm or deny it, of course, but it's a bit of an open secret that Shadow Stalker goes — sorry, used to go — to Winslow, rather than Arcadia like the rest of the Wards."

"I…haven't heard about that, before," I said slowly.

It sounded like the sort of thing that would have been all over the rumor mill, so everyone in Winslow would know about it.

Except me, apparently.

"Really?" Detective Chase seemed surprised. "Well. I guess it's not quite as open a secret as we thought it was, here."

 _Sure, let's go with that._

"Anyway, yes, Shadow Stalker _did_ go to Winslow," Detective Chase told me. "That's why I have to ask you if you've noticed anything strange, lately, at school."

"Strange?"

"Anything different from the norm," he clarified. "It's not exactly a secret that Winslow isn't the best of schools, but has there been anything that was…worse or more blatant than usual, especially amongst the gang kids?"

I…couldn't think of anything, but then, I was still trying to wrap my head around the idea that Shadow Stalker went to my school and I might have met her outside of her costume. Was that why I'd thought her hair was familiar?

"Nothing that I remember, no."

"Any fighting in the hallways, maybe," Detective Chase asked, "or any particularly harsh cases of bullying, perhaps, that maybe one of the female Track members got involved in stopping?"

For a moment, I was sure I'd misheard him.

"…You're kidding," I said incredulously.

"Miss Hebert," he began.

"This has to be some kind of joke," I spoke over him. "You're asking _me_ if there have been any particularly harsh cases of bullying. Me, the favorite victim of a vicious, two-year-long campaign by _Track star_ Sophia Hess and her two —"

I cut myself off. Something percolated in my brain, a sudden nasty feeling that froze my insides as all of the pieces slotted into place around this new idea. The picture they painted would have sounded ludicrous, before. It would've seemed like something out of a conspiracy, like the fevered daydream of some tinfoil hat on PHO.

Except that it made too much sense.

Why Sophia and Emma and Madison got away with everything.

Why the teachers tended to ignore it, even when it was happening right in front of them.

Why the Locker had been swept under the rug, hastily paid off so that Dad and I couldn't sue.

Why everyone at Winslow seemed perfectly happy to leave me on the altar as some sacrificial lamb.

Why Shadow Stalker, who I had never even glimpsed except in Wards photos online, had been found dead on my front lawn, bisected by what could only have been one of my Dragon Teeth's swords.

"Sophia Hess," I said quietly, as though testing out the name.

Except I _had_ met Shadow Stalker, hadn't I? Not in costume, but in her civilian identity. I'd seen her every day, looked into her eyes, watched her smug little grin, been envious of how much prettier she was than me, hated her in ways that made me scared, sometimes.

I'd told her off in front of all of her friends. I'd challenged her to hit me, to beat me up, to prove my point about how she was nothing more than a thug.

And she'd come to punish me for it. To…kill me? The Dragon Teeth I'd sown into the yard were designed to activate and defend me and Dad only if someone came to our house with the intent to harm us, so I doubt she'd come for a nice, friendly chat.

I remembered that scene again, the two spots where her body had lain. I remembered the large, reddish stain on the grass, the tight grip on her crossbow, even in death, the way her cloak was tangled up with her torso, the way the hood had slipped just slightly off to give me a glimpse at the head with its familiar hair attached to the body.

I imagined, now, that I had gone up to her and taken her mask off, and so very easily, the picture of Sophia's smug face pulled into a sneer fit with frightening perfection.

"Sophia Hess," I said again. Something black and ugly coiled like molten lava in my chest.

"Miss Hebert," Detective Chase started.

My eyes, which had turned towards the empty wall, swung back over to him, and I could tell, just from the way he held himself, just from his posture and the expression on his face, that he knew I knew, and that was all the confirmation I needed. The black something in my chest coiled tighter around my heart, until my head started to swim. Blood pounded in my ears, and something like an inhuman screech echoed inside my mind.

Sophia Hess was Shadow Stalker.

"Wait a minute," Dad said, sounding as though he, too, was beginning to get angry. "Taylor, that's _still going on_?"

"It never stopped," my lips said, but it felt like someone else was speaking for me.

Dad floundered for a moment. "But the school said…"

My head swung around to look at him, and something of what I was thinking must have shown on my face, because he went very pale and glanced back and forth between me and the grim, resigned expression on Detective Chase, then his face started to turn red.

"Wait a minute," he said, his voice rising. "Wait a minute. Wait just one goddamn minute. Are you telling me… Are you telling me that one of the girls behind the bullying… Are you telling me she's a —"

"A Ward," I finished for him.

Dad rounded on Detective Chase. "And you let her _get away with it_?!"

"Mister Hebert, I assure you, if we knew —"

"You didn't know?!" Dad thundered. "Are you trying to tell me that that…that _bitch_ put Taylor in the hospital in January, and _you didn't fucking_ _ **know**_ _about it_?! One of your Wards, and you're telling me that _you didn't know_ that she was tormenting my daughter out of her costume!? You expect me to _believe_ that bunch of horseshit!?"

"Mister Hebert, please," said Detective Chase. "I need you to take a minute and calm down. This isn't about —"

"You — !"

"That's why she got away with everything, isn't it?"

My words cut through the situation like a knife, and even Dad stopped short. I felt like I wanted to explode, like there was too much anger in me to be contained by my frail, human body, but somehow, my voice was mostly calm and quiet.

"I thought it was because Emma's dad was a lawyer, at first."

Dad choked, startled. "Emma?"

"But that wasn't it, was it?" I asked, my pulse quickening. "It was Sophia. The Ward. The junior hero. Winslow's precious, little, crime deterrent, or whatever the _hell_ she was. What was the happiness of one person, if it meant keeping that _bitch_ comfortable and content —"

"Miss Hebert, please!" Detective Chase interrupted, raising his voice. "Mister Hebert, Miss Hebert, I'm sure you're upset, and you have every right to be, but we _did not_ know about this."

I wanted to believe him. After Armsmaster and Miss Militia, I wanted to put some trust in what he was saying, because the alternative was horrendous. But I couldn't. Even if I didn't start yelling again, I couldn't bring myself to trust that he was telling me the truth, because —

Sophia Hess was Shadow Stalker.

"Now, Miss Hebert, I hate to have to ask you this," said Detective Chase, "but in light of what you know now, can you think of any reason Shadow Stalker was killed in front of your house or who might have done it?"

The erupting anger condensed and distilled into crystal clarity, like everything had been sharpened and stood now in harsh relief in a way that it never had before. The blazing fury turned frigid and burned inside my chest like ice, and for the second time in two days, my blood was like acid in my veins.

This time, though, it was all me.

"No, I don't know who," I said coldly. "But I might thank them if I did. There's only so many ways to escalate from attempted murder, after all, and somehow, I don't think _Sophia Hess_ was coming to bring me flowers."

Detective Chase startled. "Attempted murder?"

"You didn't know?" Maybe I'd been spending far too much time using Medea, lately, because the words came out smooth and silky, dangerous. "In January, just after winter break ended, Sophia Hess, Emma Barnes, and Madison Clements conspired to shove me into my locker, which they'd filled with a bunch of rotted tampons and…other used hygiene products. They left me in there for _hours_ ; the doctors said I was lucky I didn't get a major infection or go into toxic shock and die."

Detective Chase had paled, and there was a vague look of disgusted disbelief on his face.

"What was Sophia Hess doing on my front lawn, last night?" I asked rhetorically. "I don't know. Last time I saw her was yesterday, when I called her a thug in front of all of her sycophants at school."

"A thug?" Detective Chase repeated faintly, although he didn't sound very surprised. "Why would you…"

"I called her a thug because she, Madison, and my ex-best friend, Emma Barnes, have spent the better part of the last two years making my life miserable. If you'd asked me before New Year's, I might have said she was going to egg our house, but my guess right now? She was coming to finish what she started in January."

I looked him right in the eye. At the time, I wasn't thinking about it, but later on, I had to wonder what he'd seen, there.

"I don't know what killed her, and at this point, I'm beyond caring. She's gone, and I won't have to worry about being shoved down a flight of stairs or shouldered into a door ever again." I stood up, and with a calm I didn't feel, I told him, "There. That's my witness statement, Detective Chase."

I shoved my chair roughly out of the way and left. Behind me, I heard Detective Chase call, "Miss Hebert!" but I ignored him and slammed the door shut as I went.

The minute it closed behind me, I stopped, let out a shuddering breath, and ran a hand through my hair. Hot, wet tears carved paths down the side of my cheeks, which didn't even make sense because I wasn't sad or hurt, just angry, and with them, it felt like they were taking everything I'd been feeling in the last few hours. All of my rage and disappointment and guilt, all of it was vanishing, and what it left behind was a bone-deep emptiness, like someone had reached inside me and scooped it all away.

Sophia Hess was Shadow Stalker.

The thought brought no comfort or joy, no anger or hate, only a weariness, resignation, and understanding. The knowledge that she was dead, now, and that my home defenses had killed her gave me no happiness or satisfaction, only a kind of relief that I never had to see her face again.

I wiped away my tears with my sleeve; behind me, I could hear Dad's voice through the door, shouting something, although I couldn't quite make out what.

A few minutes later, Dad came storming out of the conference room, expression livid. As soon as he saw me again, I watched him visibly smooth his face over with what appeared to be a great deal of effort. I didn't know what I looked like, then, if he could see the tear tracks down my cheeks, if he could see in my face the twisting hollowness I felt in my chest, but whatever it was, it pulled his brow together, narrowed his eyes, and drew his mouth into a thin line.

"Come on, Taylor," he said in a strong, unbroken voice. "We're going home."

He started off down the hall, back what I assumed was the way we came, and I didn't bother arguing, because all I wanted to do, now, was go home anyway and curl up on my bed until everything made sense again. I fell into step beside him and looked up into the tense, determined set of his shoulders.

In that moment, he looked more like the Dad he used to be, more alive and full of vigor, than he had since Mom died.

"What about…"

I didn't know where exactly I was going with that question. What about Detective Chase? What about Winslow? What about the PRT? Any of them were perfectly valid questions, and all of them had at least some place in my thoughts, just then, but none of them seemed important enough in that moment for me to really be concerned about them.

Sophia Hess was Shadow Stalker. I had to get over that, before anything else could be dealt with.

Dad seemed to pick up on at least some part of it, though.

"If they want us to sign their goddamn NDA," he said fiercely, "then they can come to our house and hand deliver the paperwork themselves."

A huge swell of affection and gratitude surged through me, and I reached down for his hand just long enough to give him a grateful squeeze. If Dad's face twitched into a smile for a brief moment, then I wasn't going to tell anyone.

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

 **EDIT: There's more than one Solomon on the Throne, for the record.**

 **As always, read, review, and enjoy.**

 **And for early access to chapters and bonus content:**

 **p a treon . com (slash) James_D_Fawkes**


	16. Interlude 2a: Fractured Paragon Parallel

**Interlude 2.a: Fractured Paragon Parallel**

Colin Wallis had lost people before.

The Protectorate was not so perfect that there hadn't been mistakes in the field, mistakes in the handling of a situation, mistakes of many kinds, and there had certainly been times when a teammate or a colleague had either lost his life or left. Some had been dissatisfied and gone on to be independent heroes, and some had gone on to become villains. There was no avoiding that some people did not have the dedication or the moral fortitude to stick with it throughout the easy times and the hard ones, and Colin had long accepted that.

The hardest losses were always the deaths.

The Protectorate was not so perfect that every hero always prevailed. There were times when the heroes were defeated, times when they were injured, and times when they were killed. Against the Slaughterhouse Nine, against Endbringers, against villains who had no restraint or were unwilling to play by the rules — sometimes, no matter how well they prepared, there was a glitch in the system, a broken cog in the machine. Sometimes, as Colin had once heard a trooper say, you just rolled snake eyes.

Many heroes, good men and women, some of whom Colin had known personally and some only by reputation, had fallen to those sorts of threats. Endbringers had taken many of the greatest before their time, and the Slaughterhouse Nine had taken Colin's mentor and hero, Hero himself. If he were asked, Colin would say that too many had been taken, and too often in vain.

Rarely, however, had Colin lost a Ward.

Once or twice during an Endbringer attack, one or two Wards had been crushed or burned or drowned. Leviathan, the Simurgh, and Behemoth did not care for age or experience; they killed indiscriminately, without any distinction between hero and villain, old and young, cape or civilian.

It had never stopped being a tragedy, a waste of life and potential that had yet to flourish and grow, but it had come to be something he expected: Wards who joined Endbringer fights were ten times as likely to die as a veteran hero.

Never, however, had it happened in Brockton Bay, and never while under his command.

Injuries, yes. Some wounds of varying severity. It was Brockton Bay, home of Oni Lee, Hookwolf, and Lung, all with body counts of frankly staggering size, compared to the normal fare. Though the Wards program was designed to be a safe environment for young parahumans to learn to be proper heroes, in a city like this, that they would find themselves experiencing some degree of combat was unfortunately unavoidable.

And in the face of that, Colin would be proud to say, he had pioneered algorithms to determine the safest patrol routes and response paradigms that adjusted the number and nature of Protectorate and PRT forces based upon the threat faced. With his efforts, during his time leading the Protectorate ENE, no skirmish with the villains had ever resulted in a permanent or fatal injury, especially not among the Wards, though they were sometimes wounded.

But never a death.

Until now.

That was why Colin found himself in his secondary lab at the PRT HQ building late Tuesday morning, combing through the evidence in his real-fake job as a forensic scientist. Just a few short hours ago, he had been dragged out of bed on his morning off after a late night of tinkering in his main lab by a call from the PRT, telling him that Shadow Stalker had been found dead.

Colin frowned as he examined the photos from the scene, depicting first the position Shadow Stalker had been found in, and then the open gore of the single wound that had killed her. A more squeamish man would have recoiled at the image of naked entrails exposed to the air, but anyone who had been to more than one Endbringer fight would have seen much worse.

Shadow Stalker had been a troublemaker from the beginning. She was rude, she was abrasive, she did not respect authority except where she absolutely had to, and she bucked the rules and regulations whenever she could. She abandoned her partner and her assigned route with regularity to go off into the more dangerous parts of town, and for all that she achieved twice the results the other Wards did, she did so by ignoring her orders and going off by herself.

If he had been a more callous man, Colin might have said that Shadow Stalker's death was her own fault, for going out on what appeared to be a solo patrol without even the veneer of authorization.

Colin was not that callous, however, and even if Shadow Stalker wasn't much of a team player and did her best to tapdance all over the line, she was still a Ward. That, if for no other reason, was enough to treat this situation with the utmost importance.

"Definitely a blade," Colin noted down. "Single cut, single weapon. Sharp, long. Not Cricket, then, based upon the wound. Likely not Hookwolf, either, based upon the lack of other wounds."

He'd have to check with the medical examiner to get a better idea of the exact cut and the smoothness of the wound, once all the blood and viscera had been cleaned away and the vertebrae had been examined in more detail. How cleanly the attack had gone through bone would give him a better understanding of the sharpness of the blade, and any shards or shavings that were present in the wound would tell him what kind of weapon it was.

His first thought, of course, had led to the ABB, specifically their unpowered members. They were known to carry swords, especially katana; nearly all of them carried one, mostly cheap things made of inferior steel, but from one such weapon the BBPD had confiscated after a bust, it was apparent that Lung did not skimp for his favored lieutenants — he bought only authentic replicas, made in the traditional Japanese fashion.

Colin had ruled it out, though. Among other reasons, Shadow Stalker was already several hours dead, and the ABB had not claimed credit at all. That was why he'd moved on to parahumans, instead.

Colin's frown deepened. There were only so many villains in Brockton Bay who wielded bladed weapons or a blade of any kind, however. Oni Lee. Cricket. Hookwolf. Kaiser. Stormtiger, by technicality, but aerokinetic attacks were different from physical weapons. Of those who wielded bladed weapons, really only Kaiser used something long enough and sharp enough to actually bisect a human being in one go.

But for Kaiser to attack and kill a Ward? That was a line Colin wasn't sure Kaiser would cross without serious provocation. Too, where was the motive? Where was evidence of a battle? Aside from Shadow Stalker herself, there had been no weapons, no damage to the surroundings, no evidence that anything at all had happened.

An assassination? Possible, but again, why? What could Kaiser possibly have against a Ward? Enough that he would go after her in the dead of the night in an otherwise quiet neighborhood a fair distance from either E88 or ABB territory?

So, why would he bother? To send a message? That was possible, but to who? The Heberts? Why them? Perhaps not them in general so much as Danny Hebert in particular, then. That was possible, as well — if the E88 had been sniffing around the dockworkers in hopes of getting them to look the other way when a shipment came in and Daniel Hebert, head of hiring, had put his foot down, that might be it.

Except if he was hoping to send a message, there were other ways to do it that would also not bring the wrath of the Protectorate and PRT down on the Empire, and Kaiser was smart enough to realize that.

There was a ping from one of the several monitors in his lab, and when he went to check it, it told him what he had expected it to: no known recent triggers or out of city parahumans within one-hundred miles that had powers related to blades or were known to wield bladed weapons.

With that avenue closed, it almost _had_ to be —

Colin stiffened.

Unless it _wasn't_ the Empire _or_ the ABB. After all, there _was_ a pretty infamous cape with a power related to bladed weapons.

"Dragon," said Colin, turning to the monitor she was using to connect to his lab, "what was the last known location of the Slaughterhouse Nine?"

The screen jerked out of its screensaver and flickered, displaying his companion's face. Colin had never understood why she didn't use her real face, but respected her enough not to ask.

"New Glarus, Wisconsin, two weeks ago," Dragon replied. "Suspected direction of travel puts them heading towards Nevada. Why? You don't think _they're_ involved in this, do you?"

Colin grunted. "I don't know. The trouble is, with a cut as clean as the one that killed Shadow Stalker, it has to be some kind of edged weapon, like a blade, and of the villains in Brockton Bay who use some form of blade, I can't figure a motive for any one of them that actually explains where and how she was killed."

There was still a feeling of relief, however tentative it might wind up being, to know that the likelihood of getting a visit from the _Nine_ was so slim. Colin had been far too young during their last sojourn in Brockton Bay, but even the anecdotes he'd heard hadn't been…pretty.

"Maybe you should leave motives to detectives investigating the case?" suggested Dragon. "After all, we're doing forensics. Our job is how, when, what, where, and who, not why."

Colin grunted again. "Right," he said reluctantly. He looked back down at the photos of Shadow Stalker, splayed out on the grass in two halves. "Unfortunately, without the autopsy report from the ME, I'm a bit stuck on what killed her. I won't be able to narrow it down until he can get me a shard or a sliver of whatever the murder weapon left behind."

Dragon hummed thoughtfully.

"Maybe Shadow Stalker's personal effects, then? The ones she had on her when she…well."

Colin let out a frustrated sound from the back of his throat. If only it had been that simple.

"Less helpful than you might think," he told her gruffly. "By all accounts, it was basically the costume she wore before she became a Ward. The crossbow was her official crossbow, but there were some less official broadhead bolts that suggest Shadow Stalker might not have been toeing the line as cleanly as the PRT would have liked. The only thing really strange was the chloroform."

"Chloroform?" Dragon asked.

"Yeah. A full bottle of the stuff, unopened. Putting aside where she got something like that, it doesn't fit with her usual MO — neither as a Ward nor a vigilante. None of the attacks we linked to her involved any form of sedation, let alone something as unreliable as chloroform. That she had it on her now suggests she intended to use it, but on who or why is…harder to answer."

There was a second of silence, uncharacteristic. Colin turned to the monitor to find a look of what he might call hesitation on her face.

"Dragon?"

"I…might have an idea," Dragon admitted. "It's a little strange, I'll grant you, but in light of the evidence…"

Colin turned fully to face her. "What?"

"Have you gone through the Heberts' witness statement?"

"No, not yet."

Mostly because he didn't think there'd be anything worth noting to it. Unless this was a message to Daniel Hebert, odds were that they just happened to be incredibly unlucky enough to have Shadow Stalker die on their front lawn.

"It's like you probably suspect, not very helpful, until, that is, you get towards the end, when Detective Chase started to ask about Shadow Stalker's civilian life and school," said Dragon. "That's when things get…interesting."

Interesting?

"Interesting how?"

Dragon didn't answer; instead, after a moment or two, an audio file began to play from the speakers. Based upon the acoustics and the sound quality, Colin knew immediately that it came from one of the recording devices installed as standard in all of the PRTHQ conference rooms.

"No, I don't know who," a young woman's voice said. A chill went down Colin's spine — it sounded _familiar_. "But I might thank them if I did. There's only so many ways to escalate from attempted murder, after all, and somehow, I don't think _Sophia Hess_ was coming to bring me flowers."

There was a brief pause, barely a second, where he understood the response was being skipped over, then —

"You didn't know? In January, just after winter break ended, Sophia Hess, Emma Barnes, and Madison Clements conspired to shove me into my locker, which they'd filled with a bunch of rotted tampons and…other used hygiene products. They left me in there for _hours_ ; the doctors said I was lucky I didn't get a major infection or go into toxic shock and die."

"Dragon," Colin said gravely, "that sounds like —"

"A Trigger Event, yes," Dragon agreed. "There's more, though."

"What was Sophia Hess doing on my front lawn, last night?" the young woman's voice asked. "I don't know. Last time I saw her was yesterday, when I called her a thug in front of all of her sycophants at school."

"A thug?" echoed the voice of who could only be Detective Chase. "Why would you…"

"I called her a thug because she, Madison, and my ex-best friend, Emma Barnes, have spent the better part of the last two years making my life miserable. If you'd asked me before New Years', I might have said she was going to egg our house, but my guess right now? She was coming to finish what she started in January.

"I don't know what killed her, and at this point, I'm beyond caring. She's gone, and I won't have to worry about being shoved down a flight of stairs or shouldered into a door ever again."

The audio file ended. For a moment afterwards, the air was still and stale and almost oppressive in its weight.

"Miss Hebert left shortly after that," Dragon explained into the silence. "Mister Hebert stayed…long enough to give Detective Chase quite an earful."

Colin frowned and glanced back down at the photos. Suddenly, with a sinking sensation in his stomach, he had a suspicion about how it was Shadow Stalker had died and why she'd been on the Heberts' front lawn, and he could only hope that he was wrong.

"Dragon," he asked, "what do we know about Shadow Stalker and this girl's interactions at Winslow?"

He needed to understand. How had it come to this? Why? Was she telling the truth?

"Nothing," Dragon answered succinctly. Her mouth was pulled into a grim line. "There's a report listed January 10, with Sophia Hess as a suspect in the incident Miss Hebert describes in her witness statement, but nothing ever came of it. Other than that, Winslow has no records of any altercations between Sophia Hess and Taylor Hebert."

Colin's lips pulled into a scowl.

"Was she lying, then? About the whole thing?"

"If I was basing it solely on the lack of any incident reports, I'd have to say yes."

If his suspicion was at all true, then that certainly didn't sound like the girl he'd met two nights ago. Humble, modest, a little starstruck, but a good person above all — that was the impression she'd given him. It took a special kind of person, one that Colin had found all too uncommon, to go out, be a hero, and fight the tough fights for the sake of a complete and total stranger.

Even Colin had other motives, as much as he tried not to act solely on them.

"However," Dragon said, "in light of that, I did some digging through their student records. Prior to entering Winslow, Taylor Hebert was a straight-A model student with a nearly impeccable attendance record. I'm sure I don't need to tell you that Sophia Hess was not. She did well enough to maintain her place the Winslow Track team, but prior to Winslow, her grades could be called a B-average at best."

"And?"

"And then something peculiar happens," Dragon told him. "Starting roughly a year and a half ago, Miss Hebert's grades started to slip and she began to miss parts of her days — she would show up in the morning, but leave sometime during the lunch break. Not very often, at first, but with increasing frequency. And the reason her grades began to slip? Even though she did fairly well on tests, she apparently didn't turn in her projects and assignments on time, when she turned them in at all."

Colin felt his brow furrow. "I'm sensing that this and Shadow Stalker's grades are somehow related."

"They are." Dragon smiled. It didn't reach her eyes. "Or so it would appear. Starting around seventeen months ago, Shadow Stalker's grades started to pick up suddenly. Subjects where she would normally get a C or a B, she was turning in assignments that earned an A. Where things get very interesting is that these assignments were only turned in on days and in classes where Miss Hebert's _weren't_. What should get your attention about this the most is that there are some incidents like this where Miss Hebert claimed that her work vanished from her locker."

"You mean that Shadow Stalker was using her power to steal Hebert's work," Colin concluded. He grunted. "Unfortunately, that's hard to prove. Teenagers have been making up excuses for their missing homework forever."

It would make a degree of sense, though. Maybe not on its own, but with the narrative that was building right before his eyes, it wasn't a hard conclusion to come to, not when one knew that Sophia Hess was Shadow Stalker.

He met her eyes. "What was your idea, then? About what she was doing on the Heberts' front lawn."

A complicated expression crossed Dragon's face, something that was a peculiar mix between several different things that Colin had trouble separating. There was, however, a trace of hesitation.

"It's a bit more of a supposition than an actual theory," she admitted, "and it's not really supported by evidence so much as a…feeling. A hunch, if you will."

"It'll still be more than what we have now."

"Unfortunately, you're right." She gave him a wan smile. "Well, if we take Miss Hebert's testimony as fact, then it would seem that Shadow Stalker had a grudge or something against her. At the very least, she was Miss Hess's favorite victim. The psychology of a bully, however, doesn't permit losing, especially not to someone they've been beating down for almost two years. Given the chloroform, the location of the body, and the admission of a confrontation the day of Miss Hess's death, do you think it impossible that maybe Shadow Stalker was intent on some form of revenge?"

Colin chewed on the inside of his cheek. "It's not impossible, no. In fact, it would neatly explain her presence in front of the Hebert house. It just doesn't explain _enough_ …"

For a moment, he sat there and thought. It felt like he was running around in circles — lots of evidence, none of it coherent enough to make a solid conclusion. There was a picture coming together, a disconcerting image of a campaign of torment inflicted on an otherwise innocent girl — for what? For Shadow Stalker's own amusement? Colin couldn't say he knew the girl well enough to claim it was in her character, only that she wasn't the most personable of people.

He needed more information.

"Dragon, do we have the report on the locker incident Miss Hebert mentions in her statement?"

"It's in your inbox," Dragon replied.

Colin looked down at his interactive worktable, a piece of hi-tech machinery that functioned as a touchscreen computer as well as a workbench. He navigated his way to his Protectorate email and opened the one Dragon had just sent him, then opened the document attached to it; a page popped up, roughly the size of a standard piece of paper, with a few tabs smushed next to it to signify extra pages.

For a few minutes, Colin went through it, and his scowl got deeper and deeper and deeper as his stomach roiled with disgust. With every word, he became more and more sure that what he was looking at was the details of Taylor Hebert's Trigger Event — and, if the prosecutor was imaginative enough, an act of terrorism.

When he was done, he leaned back away from his table and took in a breath through his nose.

"Fuck," he said flatly. "If that's not a Trigger Event…"

And Shadow Stalker had been named a suspect in _that_?

No witnesses, though. No one had come forward. None of the teachers had had anything to say one way or the other. No one had been charged or even punished, and by all accounts, it had all been swept under the rug. Taylor Hebert had been stuffed into a pile of shit that Colin wouldn't wish on his worst enemy, and whoever had done it had gotten away with it.

She thought it was Sophia Hess — Shadow Stalker — though, and if her claims, unverified though they might be, were valid, then it had been going on unabated for nearly two years. And yet, there had been no incident reports by the school, no reports from the school to Hess's social worker, no reports from the social worker to anyone else in the PRT. There hadn't even been a post-it note in Shadow Stalker's record about the accusation.

That, itself, was telling, and there would undoubtedly be a reckoning later on. For now, however, the picture was starting to become clear. There was an obvious pattern of animosity between victim and tormentor, and it seemed to have come to a head, now, in Shadow Stalker's death.

Colin frowned. Except it hadn't. If his suspicion was right…

"Dragon," he said, "do we have security footage of Taylor Hebert?"

"We do," Dragon replied. "As she was coming in, as she was coming through the halls, and as she left."

"I need a front, profile, and rear view."

A moment later, three stills came up on his worktable, each showing an angled view of a teenage girl with long, curly dark hair — familiar hair. Colin's lips thinned, but this wasn't enough. He needed to get more specific and have more solid evidence. After all, Arcadia's method of hiding the Wards' identities _relied_ on what one might call body doubles.

"Next, footage from my helmet cam of the night we brought Lung in. If you can, I need similar shots of the hero I met that night, Apocrypha."

"Colin," said Dragon, "you don't think…"

"I don't know," Colin replied gruffly. "But I want to be sure."

Three more stills appeared on his worktable. The images weren't as good — the lighting was single source from his bike headlight, and the angles weren't quite as clean — but they were good enough. Comparing the two sets of images, they were strikingly similar. Not quite a perfect match, because Apocrypha's mask changed the shape of her face, but the hair was quite distinctive.

"It's not an exact match, but…"

"One last thing, Dragon. Can you estimate the height and weight of Apocrypha and Taylor Hebert, based upon references in the pictures?"

A moment later, sets of lines etched themselves onto the photos like handwritten notes. On the pictures of Apocrypha, they said "175cm" and "53kg." On the pictures of Taylor Hebert, they said "171 cm" and "54kg." A negligible difference that could be accounted for by anything from posture to her clothing and shoes.

Colin scowled.

"Miss Hebert's baggy clothes made estimating her weight a bit harder, but even so, Colin —"

"Yeah," he said grimly. "It's too close to be a coincidence."

He sighed and reached up to pinch the bridge of his nose. What a fucking mess.

"The only real questions remaining are how Shadow Stalker actually died and whether or not Taylor Hebert knew her secret identity before she died."

Because the answers to those could change the entire situation.

"She didn't," Dragon informed him.

Colin looked back over to her. "You're sure?"

"I analyzed the stress patterns in her voice, using the recap of her initial statement at the scene as a baseline. She was calm, open, and honest up until Winslow was mentioned and she made the connection between Sophia Hess and Shadow Stalker. After that, she became…well, very angry."

He grunted. "I noticed."

He took in a slow breath through his nose, stilled the whirl and hum of his thoughts, and looked back down at the pictures, both of Shadow Stalker's body and the comparison photos of Taylor Hebert and Apocrypha.

Like that, he reviewed all of the information in his head, all of the clues and the hints, all of the things ruled out and left hanging, including the conclusions he and Dragon had come to, regardless of whether the facts completely supported them or not. The picture they were painting was an ugly thing, an unholy combination of an unpunished injustice, a tragic death, and a series of errors and oversights more befitting one of Shakespeare's infamous plays than real life.

None of it was certain. There were caveats and loose threads that might unravel the whole thing, but he was confident enough in where everything pointed to say that what he thought had happened was the truth.

There was only one thing left for him to do, now. An unenviable job that fell to him.

He straightened.

"Dragon."

"Yes, Colin?"

"I want to hear that whole conversation, all of it."

"Of course, Colin."

"In the meantime, I need you to send all we have, including those photos, to Director Piggot and let her know I'm on my way up. If Miss Militia's in the building, I need her to be there, too."

"I'll get right on it."

A moment later, her face disappeared from the monitor and Detective Chase's voice started to play from the speakers; Colin pulled on his helmet and began attaching the ablative armor pieces to the protective undersuit he always wore, so that he could be ready in minutes rather than spending half an hour getting into his armor, listening all the while.

"It is Tuesday, April twelfth, and it is…Nine-oh-five AM. I am Detective Harvey Chase, conducting the interview of Mister Daniel Hebert and Miss Taylor Hebert regarding the Shadow Stalker homicide…"

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

By the time Colin — no, Armsmaster, now — reached the Director's office, he had finished listening to the Heberts' recorded witness statement and solidified the conclusion that Taylor Hebert had indeed not known Shadow Stalker was Sophia Hess beforehand. It lent credence to the theory that Shadow Stalker's death had been a result of her pursuing her own grudge, rather than Taylor Hebert's intent, and it left very few possibilities for what had actually happened.

Either way, the Director wouldn't be pleased.

Armsmaster knocked on the door.

"Enter!"

The automatic lock on the door beeped, then the door itself whooshed open, and Armsmaster stepped into the Director's office; the door shut behind him. He glanced around, and found that aside from Director Piggot, seated at her desk, Miss Militia was already there and in one of the other chairs.

Armsmaster gave them both polite nods. "Director Piggot, Miss Militia."

"Armsmaster," both greeted.

"So," said Director Piggot, folding her hands as she leaned forward, "I understand you have something for me, regarding the Shadow Stalker case?"

"Plenty," said Armsmaster. "I won't have a more definitive murder weapon until the medical examiner reports his findings and sends any shards or shavings from the wound to my lab for analysis, but I'm fairly confident in the conclusions I've reached so far."

Director Piggot raised an eyebrow. "Oh? Let's hear it, then."

"Yes." Armsmaster nodded. "Have you seen the photos from the crime scene?"

"I have."

"Then you've seen the wound."

"I have, yes."

"Based upon the nature of the wound itself, in addition to the size and severity of it, I concluded that it must have been caused by a bladed weapon," Armsmaster explained. "Of the known parahuman criminals —"

"Wait," the Director interrupted. "Are you certain it was even a parahuman at all?"

Armsmaster, lips thinning at the interruption, nodded. "There is a distinct lack of evidence to indicate the possibility that Shadow Stalker was killed by an ordinary human with a sword. Among other things, there is no sign of the presence of such an individual and no organization, particularly the ABB, who are known to carry katana, has taken credit for her death."

Piggot frowned but gave him a nod. "Go on, then."

"Of the known parahuman criminal in Brockton Bay, those who are known to wield a physical blade include Oni Lee, Cricket, Hookwolf, Kaiser, and Fenja."

"Most of those are part of the Empire," Piggot noted sourly. "Are you thinking this was a hate crime?"

Armsmaster pursed his lips. "No. Of those five, Oni Lee and Cricket can be discounted based upon the size of their weapons — neither Oni Lee's knives nor Cricket's kama are large enough to bisect a human being in one swing, as Shadow Stalker was. Of the remaining three, Hookwolf may be discounted based upon the lack of other wounds, and Fenja may be discounted based upon the wound's size."

"Leaving Kaiser. You don't think Kaiser himself killed her, do you?"

The doubt in her voice indicated that she didn't believe it, either.

"No," said Armsmaster. "In fact, this discounts most of the others, as well: the area around the body was pristine. There was no evidence of collateral damage caused by the use of powers. There were no marks indicating the presence of a transformed Hookwolf, no material left behind from one of Kasier's blades, no gouges from Fenja's missed strikes, nothing that indicated the presence of any of these capes in the vicinity."

"An unknown, then?" Miss Militia suggested. "Someone from out of the city?"

"Possible, but unlikely," Armsmaster acknowledged. "There are no known parahumans from outside the city within one-hundred miles that wield blades long enough to have killed Shadow Stalker. It's possible that it was a recent trigger that has not yet appeared on our radar, but unlikely that such a parahuman would have a strong enough grudge to come after a Ward."

He took in a breath. "From there, I considered the possibility that it might have been an opening move by Jack Slash —"

Both Director Piggot and Miss Militia went rigid. "The Slaughterhouse Nine?"

" _However_ ," Armsmaster stressed the word, "their last known location was Wisconsin, two weeks ago, with a projected destination in Nevada. I ruled it out as unlikely."

After they had a moment to relax, Piggot turned a frown on him. "That doesn't sound like something, Armsmaster," she told him sourly. "In fact, that sounds like a whole lot of nothing."

"It lends credence to my theory," he countered stoically. "Director, have you had a chance to listen to Taylor Hebert's witness statement?"

Director Piggot grimaced, closed her eyes, and took in a deep breath through her nostrils. "Yes," she said gravely.

"Then you are aware —"

"I'm aware," Director Piggot barked. "I'm well aware, now, of what Shadow Stalker has apparently been getting up to in her off time. In fact, if I had heard of this when she was still alive, she would be sitting in front of me right now trying to tell me why I shouldn't have her ass thrown into juvenile detention. I'm well aware that _somebody_ in our employ has been screwing up so badly that Hess seems to have gotten away with a crime _while_ we were supposed to be keeping a close eye on her. _How is this relevant_?"

Armsmaster's lips twisted.

"The conclusion Dragon and I came to was that Shadow Stalker may have been attempting to assault Taylor Hebert last night, following the confrontation yesterday that she mentioned in her statement. The presence of chloroform and broadhead bolts among Shadow Stalker's possessions indicates that her intentions were likely violent."

Piggot said nothing for a moment, eyes narrowing as she brought her hands up to her mouth. It was, instead, Miss Militia who spoke.

"Colin," she said, "Shadow Stalker might not have been a model hero, but she _was_ a hero. Do you really think she would do such a thing?"

"The testimony Taylor Hebert gave indicates a pattern of violence and aggression," Armsmaster countered. "Admittedly, there is a lack of corroborating evidence, given that there were no incident reports filed by the school, but —"

"So you want to base all of this on the word of a single teenage girl?" asked Piggot. "A girl who apparently has reason to dislike Sophia Hess, and therefore every reason to malign her? The incident with the locker will be easy enough to verify, but without either corroborating evidence or similar testimony from other Winslow students, you want to take Hebert at her word?"

"Director," came Dragon's voice; the screen on the far wall, normally dedicated to conference calls with other directors, came to life, "I can verify Miss Hebert's testimony. I ran a stress pattern analysis on her voice seven times, just to be sure. Almost everything she says during her witness statement is the truth, at least as she believes it."

Director Piggot's eyes sharpened. "Almost?" she asked suspiciously.

Dragon's face, or at least the rendered image of her face, had the grace to appear chagrined. Armsmaster himself chewed anxiously on the inside of his cheek and wondered why she'd even bothered to include that functionality.

"Well…"

"Dragon," growled the Director.

"There was some uncertainty regarding exactly how much she knew about Shadow Stalker's demise," Dragon admitted reluctantly. "The stress patterns are harder to judge as a result of her emotional distress after learning of Shadow Stalker's identity, so the degree of truthfulness is harder to measure."

An admirable attempt at damage control, he had to think. Unfortunately, however, Dragon's obfuscation proved to be useless.

"I want her back here _immediately_ ," Director Piggot snarled, face beginning to redden. "Arrest her, if you have to, charge her with Obstruction of Justice, _whatever_ , I want her back here so she can —"

"If you follow through with that, you'll alienate her for good!" Armsmaster warned loudly.

Director Piggot rounded on him. "And why," she asked dangerously, "should I be at all concerned about the feelings of a teenage girl who is standing in the way of our investigation into the death of one of our Wards?"

"Several reasons," Armsmaster replied, calm in the face of the storm as he planned out exactly how he was going to word this. "One of them is that it's unnecessary; I already have a theory regarding the manner of Shadow Stalker's death. Primarily, however…Director, you should have received an email around the time I asked Dragon to inform you of my intention to meet you here. If you haven't opened it, yet, do so now."

The Director did not look happy, and belatedly, Armsmaster realized that it may have been the way he worded his request as more like an order, but she did turn to her computer, set her hand on the mouse, and a few moments later, gaze intently at the screen, at what Armsmaster knew to be the annotated pictures of Apocrypha and Taylor Hebert, juxtaposed for comparison.

"Armsmaster," she said gravely, not looking away, "is this…?"

"We fucked up."

Miss Militia turned to him. "Colin?"

"Shadow Stalker may have single-handedly cost us any goodwill that Miss Militia and I managed to foster with the most powerful parahuman in Brockton Bay."

Miss Militia straightened, eyes widening. "You don't mean…Taylor Hebert is…"

"And as the people who were supposed to be responsible for her and watching to make sure she toed the line," Armsmaster continued, "we may have handed her the rope she used to hang us all with."

Piggot turned away from the computer to look at him. "Walk me through this one, Armsmaster."

Armsmaster inclined his head. "Taylor Hebert's testimony included several details that warranted investigation. Even coming from a teenage girl, her allegations of attempted murder were serious enough that Dragon and I looked into the incident in question."

An eyebrow was raised. "And?"

"The incident in question occurred January third, the first day back from the winter holiday," said Armsmaster. "Testimony given following the incident indicates that Taylor Hebert was pushed into her locker, which contained, as she said, used and rotted feminine hygiene products, then locked inside for a period of about three hours. She was found, catatonic and unresponsive, by a janitor who claimed to have received a complaint about the smell."

"Lord have mercy," Miss Militia murmured.

Piggot's eyes narrowed. "That sounds like —"

"A Trigger Event, yes," Armsmaster agreed. "That was the conclusion Dragon and I came to, as well. According to testimony Miss Hebert gave to investigators, she believed Sophia Hess to be the one to have shoved her into the locker. However, the police report lists lack of evidence and no corroborating statements from classmates as the reason why no suspects were named and no arrests made. Financial records show that Winslow paid Miss Hebert's hospital bill."

Piggot's lips thinned. Armsmaster didn't have to imagine why; not only was the entire incident horrid, but they _had not heard about it_. At the very least, there should have been a notification sent by the school explaining that Sophia Hess was a person of interest in a criminal investigation, _especially_ because she was under probation.

"From there, Dragon went through their records on a hunch," he said. He turned to the monitor as though passing the conversation over to her.

"Prior to and following the incident in January, there are no other reports filed by the school regarding any hostile interactions between Sophia Hess and Taylor Hebert," Dragon chimed in. "However, there were some discrepancies I noted in their grades. Prior to Winslow and for the first three or so months of her freshman year, Sophia Hess maintained a B average grade, if only barely. Over the same timeframe, Taylor Hebert maintained a high A, such that she was offered the opportunity to skip a grade, but declined.

"Starting about seventeen months ago, shortly after Miss Hebert complained to the school that she was being bullied," Dragon went on, "Miss Hebert's grades started to decline on account of missed assignments and Miss Hess's grades began to improve. Comparing the dates, the classes, and the assignments missed, I noticed a correlation between them: whenever Miss Hess turned in an assignment that earned her a high grade, Miss Hebert turned in no assignment at all, and always for a class they shared. For some of these assignments, Miss Hebert claimed hers had gone missing either from her locker or directly from her bag."

"And you're sure Miss Hebert wasn't simply missing her assignments?" Piggot asked. "That she wasn't just falling behind?"

"It's possible, but doesn't fit the data," Dragon said. "Aside from her missed assignments, Miss Hebert consistently managed to perform well on written exams and in-class work. Furthermore, about a month after this pattern began, Miss Hebert started to rack up absences — but only in the afternoons. Her attendance records show that some days, she would show up in the morning, attend her first two classes, then leave during or shortly after lunch. Interestingly, the only classes Miss Hebert shares with Sophia Hess all occur in the afternoon. Security camera footage from the only working camera at the entrance shows Miss Hebert leaving Winslow around noon last Friday, dripping wet."

Piggot's expression was thunderous.

"So," she began, "let me see if I understand what you're telling me, here. For over a year, Shadow Stalker, in her civilian identity as Sophia Hess, has apparently spent her free time during school stealing assignments — with her powers, if I understood your implication correctly — and performing mean-spirited pranks on an apparently unrelated teenage peer, in the process sabotaging the education of what was apparently an honors student?"

"Yes, Director."

"Of course, it doesn't end there, does it? After a year of this…let's call it a campaign, because this isn't just a habit. After a year of this campaign and only a month or two after joining our Wards program, she allegedly participated in a prank so vile and so cruel that you're fairly sure it was Miss Hebert's Trigger Event. And yet, despite our request to Winslow's administration to report any incidents to us and despite the fact that Hess was a person of interest, if not an outright suspect, in a criminal investigation, _this_ is the first we're _hearing about it_?"

"That's correct," Armsmaster replied.

Piggot looked very much like she wanted to start yelling, but with the discipline that probably came from her time as a trooper, she reined herself in.

"I see." Her voice was steady and even, but anything but calm. "And this…confrontation Hebert mentions occurred yesterday, you're of the opinion that it's the catalyst for Shadow Stalker appearing on their front lawn?"

"I am," answered Armsmaster. "Given the pattern of animosity, the presence of chloroform and broadhead bolts on Shadow Stalker's person, her personality profile, and the confrontation yesterday as the catalyst, I am of the opinion that Shadow Stalker intended to perform some manner of violence on Taylor Hebert, last night."

The Director opened her mouth to say something, but at that moment, Dragon spoke up. "Director Piggot. Analysis of Shadow Stalker's phone records just came back. Yesterday afternoon, shortly after the school day ended for Winslow, she used her phone to search for the phone number and personal address first of _Hebert, Taylor_ , then _Hebert, Daniel_. Several hours later, she entered that address as a destination location in her phone's GPS system."

Director Piggot's lips formed into a grim line. "Well," she said. "It seems _that_ part has been cleared up, at least. Perhaps now you'd like to explain what this has to do with Apocrypha?"

"Her powers, Director," Armsmaster answered.

"What?"

"Her powers," echoed Miss Militia. She was looking at Armsmaster when he turned to her. "Apocrypha told us when we went to capture Lung that her powers worked by borrowing the equipment, skills, and abilities of figures from legend and mythology. The name she by which she described the powerset she used to defeat Lung was 'Siegfried,' from the Richard Wagner's _Der Ring des Nibelungen_ , who slew the dragon Fafnir."

Piggot reached up and pinched the bridge of her nose. "If you could get more to the point…"

"Mythology is rife with magic, Director," Miss Militia explained before Armsmaster could even open his mouth. "If Apocrypha's powers let her use wizards and witches like Circe and Merlin, then I think it would be entirely possible that a powerset like that might be interpreted as a kind of…lingering Shaker effect, perhaps similar in scale to Labyrinth, from Faultline's crew. Right, Armsmaster?"

Armsmaster frowned, but nodded. "That's correct. In that case, it's not beyond the realm of possibility that she may have layered a series of defenses on or outside her home. Shadow Stalker simply ran afoul of them on her way in to pay Miss Hebert back for the confrontation earlier in the day."

"I see," said Director Piggot. "And I suppose that you would have me believe that there was some…system in place that prevented these defenses from activating whenever anyone else tried to come in?"

"It may be some kind of intent-based measurement system," Armsmaster reasoned. "Perhaps reading aggression response in hormone levels, or maybe some kind of IFF, or even a combination thereof."

"In other words," Piggot replied, "our understanding of powers and how they work is such that even our best guess is only our best _guess_ , and there's no way to say for sure outside of asking the girl directly."

She sighed, and for a moment, she was silent; then, she looked Armsmaster directly in the eye through his visor. "We'll do the official paperwork later. For now, give me your best estimate of what kind of threat we're facing if she decides to hold us accountable for Hess's fuckups."

Armsmaster made to respond, but once again, Miss Militia beat him to it.

"Mid to high level Trump," she rattled off. "Trump four, maybe as high as seven or eight. Subsets of Brute and Mover, maybe Shaker or Blaster. High ratings across the board, likely immune to small arms fire. It'll depend upon what hero she uses, but if we have to face her, it'd be a good idea to have any response team be well versed in prominent mythological figures. Ideally, if we absolutely had to fight, we'd neutralize her before she could use her power."

Piggot frowned, a sour, distinctly unhappy expression that looked like she'd just swallowed a particularly large lemon. It wasn't hard to read her thoughts off of her face, even for someone that sometimes struggled with social cues: she'd just been told that she had a live nuclear warhead in her city, and it might be aimed directly at her office.

"You're a little too generous," said Armsmaster. "She's a Trump, for certain, and certainly, she can access a powerset that includes a high Brute rating, if she can go toe to toe with Lung. However, even if her powersets are versatile and varied enough to include 'wizards' that provide a Shaker ability, Apocrypha herself admitted that she doesn't quite yet have a handle on her own limitations. Unless and until she exhibits the breadth and depth that she has implied she can, we shouldn't rate her higher than we can prove she can reach. Trump four, Brute six or seven, Shaker 3, with perhaps a two in all the other classifications, just to account for the possibility of her other powersets."

For an instant, he hesitated.

"I also noted a slight distortion around her base form," Armsmaster added, swallowing the faint stirrings of guilt. "She may have a secondary Breaker power as a form of personal shield, similar to Glory Girl. Given that she opted not to fight Lung with it, it may not be very strong."

Even that, however, did not seem to make the Director any happier. In fact, from the face she made, it seemed like she might have thought he was just splitting hairs.

"In other words," Piggot summed it up, "if we can't hit her hard enough to take her down before the fight begins, we might as well not even fight at all."

Dragon, however, seemed to have had enough. "With all due respect, Director, I think that treating Miss Hebert as an enemy is a grave mistake. Seeking a confrontation with her, physical or otherwise, should be the last option we explore, not the first."

The Director turned to Dragon's monitor, one eyebrow rising.

"You think we should bend over for her and _ignore_ the fact that Shadow Stalker, for however much of a pain she was and for whatever she may have done, is dead apparently because of her?"

"No," said Dragon. "I think we should consider it what it was and rule Shadow Stalker's death an act of self-defense. I also think that we would be remiss not to acknowledge the mistakes made that led to this event in the first place and offer our apologies to Miss Hebert that things got so out of hand."

" _Our_ apologies, you mean, since you're not an official member of the Protectorate. It's easy to say something like that when you, personally, don't wind up with egg on your face."

Armsmaster bit his tongue to stop from saying something he might regret. It wasn't that he didn't understand the importance of good PR and keeping the image of a strong, competent PRT and Protectorate, he just didn't like it when it stopped them from doing the right thing, and especially not when it alienated people who could do a lot of good.

"As you say, Director," Dragon agreed. "However, it doesn't change my position. If you circle the wagons and attempt to fight her, you'll only create your own worst enemy. If you try to use this event as blackmail to force her into the Wards, you'll destroy _any_ remaining trust and goodwill you have with her. If you want at all to end this in a manner that doesn't result in the most powerful parahuman in the Bay as a villain, then the only option available to you is to repair these burned bridges with whatever means you have available."

Emboldened, Armsmaster took a step forward. "Director," he said, "I agree with Dragon."

Director Piggot turned now to regard him with something akin to surprise on her face.

"You do?"

"I was the one to first encounter her," he told her passionately. "I had a chance to see both the legendary hero and the insecure, teenage girl trying to live up to something that was so immensely beyond herself. I had a chance to see a girl almost half my age stutter and swoon, who had just minutes before beaten the most dangerous criminal cape in the Bay on her first night out, all because she couldn't bear the thought of letting him go and kill children."

It didn't feel like enough. It didn't feel like he had convinced her, either of Apocrypha's heroism or of the connection between Apocrypha and Taylor Hebert that he felt was obvious. He could still see some skepticism, a look on her face that said she was humoring him but that he hadn't won her over. If he just had something that could show her, something more persuasive…

It was all circumstantial evidence, of course, as it always was. The PRT wasn't in the business of proving secret identities, but they gathered and maintained all the information they could about the heroes and villains and who they were behind the mask, just in case. Even if what they could find didn't prove beyond a doubt that _this_ cape was _this_ person in civilian life, it was often useful in keeping track of who was _probably_ who and what they did outside the mask.

Taylor Hebert and Apocrypha were the same. Armsmaster had nothing rock solid, but he had enough tidbits and pieces that he was _sure_ that they were the same person, that the girl who had been seething in one of their conference rooms was the same as the young heroine he had met just a couple nights ago —

Seized by a sudden idea, he turned to the monitor on the wall and said, "Dragon, I need the footage from my helmet cam from two nights ago, starting with the moment I came upon the scene."

Dragon's face disappeared.

"I understand that this is a lot to take on faith, Director," said Armsmaster. "Even in our line of work, circumstantial evidence is difficult to base your decisions on. However, watch this footage, listen to her, and _tell me_ that Taylor Hebert isn't Apocrypha. _Tell me_ that she's not a damaged girl, trying to prove herself better than her darkest moment."

A moment later, the screen flickered back to life and he was watching himself dismount his bike and aim his halberd at a tall, athletic woman with silvery hair who had turned to look at him.

"You gonna fight me?" his past self asked gruffly.

A trace of a smile flitted across the woman's lips and she said, "It wouldn't even be an actual fight."

Director Piggot snorted, but didn't interrupt.

Barely had the words left the woman's lips than did her face twist in surprised horror, and in between one frame and the next, she had shrunk several inches and a slightly less tall and marginally less athletic teenage girl stood in her place.

"Oh my god," the girl said. "I'm sorry, that wasn't even me — Siegfried was the one who — it just kind of slipped out before I could — I didn't even — oh…"

Armsmaster watched her swoon and his past self catch her, and he remained silent as the rest of the encounter played out. Seeing it now, from an outside perspective, it was even easier to catch the cues she gave off, some of which he'd noticed the first time and some of which he hadn't.

It only reinforced the impression he'd formed of her that night. Shy, nervous, a little starstruck, but proud of what she had accomplished and, yes, even horrified by the damage she and Lung had inflicted upon the street. Painfully new and inexperienced, but learning quickly. She would make a good hero, if only she had the chance.

When it was over and Dragon's face had replaced the footage on screen, the room was silent. Director Piggot remained, staring straight at the wall, with a thoughtful and contemplative look on her face.

"You had her," she said at last. "If you'd managed to bring her back here with you, it would've all been over but the signing. Hess might still have been an issue, but one that we could handle in-house, rather than in death."

Armsmaster shifted a little. He glanced to the silent Miss Militia, who was looking intently at the Director, as though waiting for her orders. Or maybe she was waiting until her opinion was needed again and observing the flow of things in the meantime — Armsmaster had always had more trouble reading her than any of his other colleagues.

"Director?"

Finally, Piggot turned back around and lifted up her eyes to stare into his helmet. The set of her brow told him she'd come to a decision.

"So," she began, voice strong, "we need to mend this bridge and find out how to recapture some of that awe and goodwill. I need a game plan, and I need it yesterday."

Armsmaster didn't hesitate. He straightened, already working through ideas on how to do just that, and replied, "Of course, Director Piggot."

Colin had never lost a Ward before, and that was a tragedy, but perhaps, amidst this terrible mess, her death had given them the chance to prevent another one.

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

 **I'm not super happy with this one, but I never did get around to the edits I meant to make, so here it is.**

 **As always, read, review, and enjoy.**

 **And for early access to chapters and bonus content:**

 **p a treon . com (slash) James_D_Fawkes**


	17. Pendulum 0-2

**Pendulum 0.2**

 **+1320:15:33**

One of the things about my powers I'd been a bit hesitant to touch was magic. It wasn't just a matter of believing in it or not or anything like that, although those trains of thought had their own thorns, but more a problem of the…stigma attached to capes who thought their powers were magic.

It wasn't that there were that many that did. A few, to be sure, but most, even if they thought that way, never admitted it out loud. That was because _they_ worried about the stigma, too.

The reason why was Myrddin.

There was no question that Myrddin was definitely a powerful cape. He wasn't someone you could laugh off and call silly; if you were a bad guy and you were fighting him, you didn't take him any less seriously than any other hero.

The problem wasn't raw ability, though. Sure, Myrddin was a really powerful cape and a prominent figure in the Chicago Protectorate, and I didn't think anyone doubted that for an instant, but that didn't mean that people didn't laugh at him.

Because when it came to capes who claimed their powers were magic, Myrddin was the loudest and proudest of them, and _that_ was why people thought he was a little…touched in the head was a good phrase for it. Delusional, if I had to put it in one word.

Now, of course, I wasn't an expert on powers and where they came from, so maybe Myrddin was right and powers _did_ come to us via magic of some kind. Functionally, since no one _else_ understood where they came from, the difference was negligible; powers might as well have been magic, for all that people could explain them.

Maybe it was just a product of our time, then. People didn't actually believe in magic, anymore, so anyone claiming their powers were magic or a byproduct of it tended to be laughed at by nearly everyone on PHO.

That was why I'd been a bit leery about touching some of my magic-based heroes, figures like Medea or Circe or Merlin. If I went around using them and claiming everything they did was magic, I'd just be laughed at, too.

As for my thoughts on the whole thing? Honestly, I had no idea what to think. I had mages in my list of heroes, wizards and witches and whatever you wanted to call them. My power called their abilities "magic." Not Shaker or Blaster or whatever. Magic. Maybe I could have just written that off, but…

Yesterday, I'd Installed King Arthur, and everything my power had told me beforehand had been true, even the parts that had gone against my research into Arthurian legends. King Arthur was a sixteen year old girl. Excalibur shot beams of light. King Arthur _literally_ had the powers of the Red Dragon from Merlin's prophecy, instead of just being a metaphor for Britain.

And maybe I could just write that off as being my powers' weird interpretation of the mythology, but…was it? Why would my powers invent a whole story, a whole personality, a whole _person_ , with her own thoughts, feelings, and experiences, who felt so _real_? Why would it follow so many of the beats of the original mythos, then throw crazy or ridiculous things into the mix, like Merlin doing… well, _that_ to her, and Morgan le Fey taking advantage of it to make Mordred?

In the end, _was_ I just borrowing from mythological figures, or were these real people I was reaching across space and time to mimic and channel? Artoria Pendragon, Mordred, the Lady of the Lake… were these people who had once existed, preserved now in my powers, or was this just some crazy reinterpretation of their legends that my powers were making up on the fly?

And if they _were_ real, did that mean that the other figures, like Medea and Circe, Roland and Charlemagne, or Cúchulainn and Aífe were real, too? Did that mean that their powers were actually magic, and that it wasn't just some… vague approximation my own powers were creating?

It all seemed too fantastical. I wasn't sure I was ready to start believing that magic had once been as real as my right hand, because it just seemed too impossible, too unbelievable. Occam's Razor — what was more likely? That my powers really did borrow from real people who once existed, magic was real but nowhere to be seen in the modern world, and I could do all of it, or that this was just my powers, which were strange and incomprehensible on the best of days, being weird?

So, I wasn't ready to start believing in magic, yet. Maybe one of the reasons I hadn't wanted to touch my more magical heroes was that it would be harder to write it off as just my powers if I actually used them, and that was opening a whole kettle of fish that might mean redefining my understanding of the world and how it worked.

However, I'd already come to the decision that I couldn't afford to ignore parts of my powers just because I was afraid of them or their implications. That didn't just mean Installs, that meant the wizards and mages and spellcasters I'd been ignoring up until now, too.

Following that reasoning, I spent the rest of yesterday afternoon just looking up wizards and witches and other magical heroes, starting with the Greeks, as I had when I first began researching my heroes at all. I found, to my surprise, that there weren't actually that many. Circe and Medea were the first names to pop up, and when it came down to it, mostly the only ones that weren't directly gods or goddesses, like Hecate. There were a few soothsayers, a couple of oracles, a prophet or two, and magical weapons and artifacts all over the place, but when it came down to it, very few mages or magicians or wizards.

That trend continued when I expanded my research to other cultures. Cúchulainn, Aífe, Scáthach, a fairy or two in the Fenian Cycle, Merlin, Nimue, Morgan le Fey, and a few more obscure guys in the Arthurian sagas, Brynhildr in Volsung… A lot of them just went unnamed. There were a bunch of fairy tales that had a wizard or a witch as a bad guy and never bothered to name them beyond "the evil witch" or "the evil wizard."

Eventually, I'd gotten linked to alchemists, which I'd heard once were the predecessors to modern chemists, and from there, I'd found a bunch of guys like Nicolas Flamel and Paracelsus and John Dee. I hadn't yet seen if any of them counted among my "heroes," but I was sure I'd get there once I'd experimented with a few of my "pure magic" guys.

That was how I found myself back in that rundown warehouse the next day. The camera and backpack I'd brought with me the first time more than a month ago had been left behind, because I wasn't planning on recording anything this time. Instead, I'd come exactly as I was.

It still amazed me that no one had picked up on my habit of coming here on the weekends, but maybe that was because this was completely uncontested territory and no one felt like fighting for this scrap heap.

"Alright," I told myself as I stepped back into that clear space I'd been using since the first day. I took a bracing breath and squared my shoulders. "Okay. Here we go."

I would have freely admitted to being nervous. I'd used an Install a grand total of two times, now, and one of those was the Locker. Sure, nothing had gone wrong with King Arthur, but King Arthur was an upright and moral person who lived in the bounds of a moral code of knighthood. Her personality had been…mild, for lack of a better term. Calm. Direct and strong, but not consumed with purpose, grudges, or regrets, the way that hero in the Locker had been, the way some other heroes might be.

Even so, it was a decision I'd already made. This procrastination was just me being scared, being nervous about what might happen. I couldn't, wouldn't, let it stop me from moving forward.

"For real, now."

I stilled. I let out a breath. I reached inside of myself and grasped at my power.

"Set."

The warmth spread through me, and wherever it passed, change was left behind. My primary form, costume included. A stepping stone, it was hard not to realize, to the next stage of my power.

I reached through myself and out into the vastness. Another time, I might have been overwhelmed with a plethora of choices, all of them valid and all of them suited in some way to what I was looking for. However, I already had my choice in mind, and I'd known from the beginning who I would be Installing first, today.

I grasped her and pulled her towards myself, preparing my mind for the invasion to come and my body for the sudden change.

"Install."

We merged.

There were other ways to describe it. I might have said that it was like I was incomplete and she was filling up all of the empty spaces inside of me with something _more_. I might have said that I was accepting all of her into myself, the good, the bad, and all the little things that were neither one nor the other. Her hates, her fears, her loves, her joys.

When I opened my eyes again, it was already over. There'd been no muss, no fuss, no sudden desire to kill everything in sight. I was still myself, and I could feel her presence in the back of my head. For someone so famous for her wrath, she was actually surprisingly calm and even-tempered.

Perhaps the most jarring thing was suddenly finding myself almost six inches shorter. It was strange to feel like, "This is how tall I'm supposed to be," at the same time as, "I'm way shorter than I'm supposed to be." The difference had been even bigger yesterday with King Arthur, but I hadn't been paying it any mind, so it was more noticeable to me, now.

I looked down and immediately felt jealous. She wasn't exactly a buxom blonde who could make a tidy living at Hooters, but she was noticeably bigger than I was in my normal body.

"Of course she is," I murmured. "The only one smaller than me is a girl who was pretending to be a boy."

I stopped paying attention to that and moved on to other things, like the clothes. They were actually fairly intricate — befitting of a princess, I supposed — and came in varying shades of purple. A lighter robe formed the underlayer, hugging snugly in all of the right places ( _holy shit, I had hips, now_ ), and overtop of that was a sort of mantle-sleeve-combination thing in a darker purple that covered my arms and shoulders, and the uppermost layer was what I could only describe as a black cloak, trimmed in gold and complete with a hood that was flopping against my back.

I wanted a mirror to check everything in more detail, but there wasn't one available and I wasn't about to go running around to find one. Instead, I had to settle for pulling at a few strands of hair to find they'd turned a pale blue ( _blue_ , of all colors) and straightened out, and it was in the middle of that where I discovered the ears: pointed and elfin.

For a moment, I was stunned. Medea had elf ears. Actual, honest-to-God, straight-out-of-Lord-of-the-Rings elf ears. Then, I felt stupid, because _duh_ , Medea of Colchis _wasn't human_. Not fully, at least. The stuff I'd read online had debated exactly how divine her blood was, but when your grandfather was the _Sun God_ , there was no arguing that your blood was at least _somewhat_ divine. The ears were…strange and unexpected, but not the _weirdest_ thing she could have had.

Like a tail. Or horns. Or wings. _Altered_ appendages were one thing, but _extra_ appendages probably would have been too much to deal with on just my third ever Install.

That was one of the reasons why I was hesitant to touch Medusa, after all. If I used her, would I get the lower body of a snake and vipers for hair? The possibility was kind of creepy, to be honest.

Once I was done with my self-inspection, I turned instead inwards and looked at Medea's knowledge: what could she do?

It turned out, quite a lot. Offense, defense, healing, espionage — Medea had a spell for each of those roles. She could curse you, shield you, obliterate you, reattach your arm, bewitch you and make you her spy, trap you in a pit of darkness, lay down spells like landmines to protect a base; if you named it, she had something she could use to accomplish it.

Which meant that now I did, too.

I looked around at the disheveled warehouse and decided on a target, then took aim at a big chunk of what looked like roofing. I lifted my arm and pointed one finger at it as though it was a pistol or a cannon.

Start off small, I decided. No need to blast the entire warehouse down to the bedrock. Just…something that could give me an idea of how powerful Medea's "magic" really was.

"Ερε Εκάτη."

Something hot and powerful surged and gathered at my fingertip, then a bloom of bright, pink light appeared and shot forth as a ray. Through the glow, I could just barely make out the patterns of circles and lines that traced themselves around, in front, and behind the bloom as though they were the lenses through which the beam was being focused and condensed.

The aftermath was more than I expected. What I thought would happen was more like a small explosion, like the rubble would just be blown apart. What actually happened was something more like how sci-fi movies and popular Aleph games like _Halo_ (for what little I knew of those things; I read more fantasy, myself) tended to treat laser weapons — the beam had bored straight through, carving out a perfectly circular cone that was charred and smoking, and it had continued going, searing its way through everything else, until it hit the far wall. Even from where I was standing, I could see the tiny, blackened hole that had not quite punched all the way through the brick and plaster.

I looked down at my hand; the black glove covering it was untouched. It wasn't even singed.

"Holy shit," I breathed.

That was one of Medea's _weaker_ spells. Still meant for offense, still meant to do serious damage, but the upscaled version of that was firing beams like they were _raindrops_ and reducing everything in the way to rubble. _That_ was the nuclear option, as I'd seen it being called on PHO, or according to the much more crass version, "Fuck everything in that general direction." _This_ version was supposed to be more precise, more contained, and just less devastating, and it had still gone through both my target and almost everything behind it.

I glanced around.

If this was the kind of damage it could do, though, then maybe I shouldn't be practicing with it in what was my "official" training grounds? Practicing my Celtic martial arts here would be a lot harder to pull off if I accidentally drew the attention of everyone in ten square miles by blowing the roof off of this building or turning the wall into melted slag.

I pursed my lips and took mental stock of Medea's other spells. Most of them had plenty of other uses, and not nearly all of them had destructive purposes, but everything that didn't run the risk of bringing this decrepit old heap down on my head had at least one of three problems: it needed a livelier target to test on than rubble (and I wasn't about to start testing those on animals or people), it took a lot of time and preparation that I wasn't ready to invest just yet, or it required an injured person to test it on.

Long term spells took too much time to do in an afternoon, so I'd have to come back to those later, when I could dedicate an entire weekend to them. Spells designed for immobilizing or ambushing the enemy were useless without a moving target, so those were just right out. I…could, maybe, have gone down to the hospital and volunteered, but I was fairly sure if I did that in dark colors and a cowl, the best I could have hoped for was to be summarily be turned away.

No, it didn't look like I really had anything else I could do with Medea, right now.

Nothing else for it, then.

"Release."

I let go of Medea and dropped back into my primary, costumed form. I felt her vanish, her presence and her knowledge, and like with King Arthur the day before, only the faintest of her memories still remained. I could, if I tried, envision the beach where she'd remained in exile, imagine the face of her father, see glimpses and snippets of her learning magic from Hecate, but it was all without meaning or personal stake. It was like…copying the answers to my math homework out of the textbook; the answers were right, the work was done correctly, and everything was flawless, but I didn't understand how the conclusion was reached or how the equation supplied the answer.

I had to think that it followed for her skills and abilities, too.

I lifted my hand and pointed at another piece of rubble.

"Ere Hecate."

But nothing happened. The words were the same, the intent was the same, and I was fairly sure that I was pronouncing them exactly as I remembered pronouncing them just a few minutes ago, but something vital was still missing. Without Medea, I might as well have been speaking in gibberish.

I let out a slow sigh through my nose.

I wasn't disappointed, though. I'd been expecting that it would work that way, and it had been a pretty big longshot in the first place. In fact, I probably would have been _more_ surprised if it had actually worked.

I let my hand drop. My fingertips weren't even warmed.

"Oh well," I murmured.

Nothing to it, though. If it didn't work, it didn't work.

"Okay. So, who was next?"

I'd compiled a list of spellcaster types from my research, and Medea had been first, because…well, maybe I just sympathized with her. She was a tragic character who had been _mind-controlled_ into doing a bunch of terrible things, and at the core of her, even after all of that, she was actually a fairly good person — better, I think, than I would have been in her shoes. Circe, meanwhile, was a bit of a manipulative bitch, and what I knew of Merlin from King Arthur's memories was…strange. That was why second on my list was the magician said to be Merlin's equal, rather than Merlin himself.

I reached into myself and back out into that vastness. I already knew who I wanted again, so she came to me instantly.

"Set. Install."

We merged, just as I had with Medea. All of the empty places were filled.

In an instant, I was three inches shorter. My costume lengthened and flowed into an intricate gown and a long, priestess-like robe overtop of it, all done in varying hues of white and pale blue. Something heavy and metal rested against the skin of my chest, just beneath the collarbone, and something equally metal encircled each of my middle fingers. Beneath the skirt of my gown, I could feel my feet were bare.

I looked down at my arms through a curtain of golden hair to see the big, billowing sleeves of my robe, stitched with flowing, water-like gold designs near the hem. On my head, I felt a snug crown made of twining bits of metal, swirling and flowing together like the waves of a deep lake.

I reached up for my ears again, and found them just as pointed as Medea's had been. My hands trailed down over the gown — silk — over the swell of this hero's bust, over the hips that could have made Aphrodite jealous, and then came back up again so I could inspect the perfection of each nail and each finger.

She was beautiful. I didn't need a mirror to tell. She possessed an unnatural, unearthly radiance that went beyond human. Looking at her, no one could mistake her for a simple, mortal woman. Looking at me with her power, her essence, inside of me, no one could mistake me for one, either.

She was a fairy. Lady of the Lake, Nimue.

It was…incredible, how beautiful I felt like this. Medea had certainly been attractive herself, but with Nimue, it felt like I could melt men's hearts with a smile. Ordinary, bland Taylor Hebert could never have been this charming, this enchanting, this… this…

But I couldn't be Nimue forever. Even if I could have been, it was something I shouldn't do. No matter how much she put a girl like me to shame.

Besides, I'd Installed her for a reason. Gawking at her flawless skin and her perfect body wasn't what I'd called on her for.

I forced myself to focus and reached into her knowledge. What awaited me was a vast trove of spells and magical formula — different than Medea's. Vaster, and yet somehow more limited. Stronger, and yet somehow weaker. More versatile, and yet somehow less capable.

If I had to try and describe it, I would have said that Medea's magic was closer to the source and therefore had a potency that Nimue's lacked, but Nimue's was not necessarily lesser because she was an equal to the man said to be the greatest magician to ever live.

Even that didn't quite capture it, though.

I could see myself using Nimue in certain situations, but for general spellcasting and for most combat, Medea would just be faster and easier.

Now, when it came to Noble Phantasms — I turned my attention in that direction and began inspecting them — Medea was somewhat lackluster, in some areas, although her chariot…

I stopped. Took a moment to make sure I was understanding the information. Took another moment to check again, just to make sure. Then, once I was sure I wasn't "misreading" it, I blinked, nonplussed, and opened and closed my mouth a couple of times.

Finally, when my mouth and my brain had reset their connection, the only thing I could think to say was a very inelegant, "Oh."

That was… Okay.

Yeah. Maybe Nimue was better than I gave her credit for.

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

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	18. Trust 3-1

**Trust 3.1**

Let the Alighted Wind be as a Wall.

The ride home was a blur, spent in total silence without even the meagerest of attempts at conversation. I stared out the window the whole way, not even seeing the city as it passed me by. I was too angry.

Within five minutes of leaving, I was back to simmer. I had nothing to do except think about it all, the more I thought about it, the more that blackness I'd felt in the office started to curl up inside of me like a hissing snake.

Sophia was Shadow Stalker. I was still struggling to wrap my head around it. Sophia was Shadow Stalker. My own personal nemesis, one of the three girls who had spent the last two years tormenting me for some sick, twisted form of amusement, was a government certified hero. The biggest _bitch_ this side of the Bay, a girl who seemed like she'd fit _right in_ with all of the E88 gangers if she'd been born a white girl, was a _fucking hero_.

And she'd tried to kill me. She'd brought a crossbow to my house, and if it hadn't been for the Dragon Teeth I'd sown into the yard, she would've _killed me_. And she was a _hero_.

I wanted to scream, to hit something, to pull out Medea and blow something up. _How_? _How_ could Sophia be Shadow Stalker? _How_ could she be a hero? _How_ could the psychotic _bitch_ who'd locked me in my own locker with a pile of vile _shit_ , who had spent the last _two fucking years_ making every day of my life a living hell, be a _hero_?

It wasn't _fair_. Where was the karma, where was the justice, where were all those good and wonderful things that were supposed to shine through, in the end, like all of the books and cartoons said they would?

I was jolted out of my thoughts when the truck trundled to a halt in our driveway, but the familiarity of home didn't do anything to make me feel any better.

When Dad twisted the key and the battered old pickup stuttered off, we just sat there. For a long moment, neither of us said anything, and Dad neither reached for the door nor looked in my direction. When I glanced over to him, he was staring straight forward at the house, brow set and mouth tight. I swallowed around some of the acid that was waiting on my tongue.

"Why didn't you tell me?" he asked at length.

My brain stumbled for a moment, and anything I might have been prepared to say slipped from my fingers like sand. "Tell you?"

"About the _bullying_ , Taylor!" Dad barked. He scowled and closed his eyes, and when he continued, his voice was somewhat calmer, although still angry. "Why didn't you tell me that the bullying had never stopped?"

The blackness coiled in my stomach wound tighter, fueled by two years of frustration and anger and hatred that was quickly piling up all at once, and my head started to feel fuzzy and hot. The words, biting and sarcastic, came out before I could stop them.

"And what would you have done if I had told you?"

Because that was the very thing that had stopped me from telling him in the first place.

Because I already knew how it would have gone.

"I would have gone to the principal!" Dad said loudly. "I would have given her a piece of my mind, because she promised —"

"And what would that have done?" I demanded. "What would that have solved? You think Blackwell would've given a damn? It was lip service after the Locker, it would've been lip service then, too!"

And even if it had worked, what then? It was like I'd just told Gladly yesterday: even if I went and complained, even if I managed to get them suspended or in detention for a few days, all that would accomplish would be to give them time to plan how they were going to get back at me. It wouldn't have solved anything.

"Then we go to the police!" Dad insisted. "Or we sue! Taylor, I wouldn't have let them get away with this kind of thing!"

"No, you wouldn't!" I shouted. "We didn't have the money to sue after the Locker! _That's why you had to sign that settlement in the first place_!"

I didn't really blame him for that, but I knew he blamed himself, so I said it anyway.

"We could've gone to —"

He cut off. I laughed, harsh and cruel and mirthless. "Alan Barnes, right? Except his precious, little girl is one of the ones who put me in that locker. I can just imagine how that one would've gone — 'Sorry, Danny, I tried, but you just don't have enough of a case.' Emma would've been using that as material before he even finished apologizing!"

"And what about Emma?" Dad changed tracks. "Why didn't you tell me she was one of the ones picking on you?"

"Because it wouldn't have helped! Because you couldn't have done anything about it!"

"I would have talked to Alan! I would've tried —"

"Tried and fucking _failed_!" I spat. "You would've confronted him, shouted at him, yelled at him when he fucking lied to your face, and then he would've slapped you with a restraining order so fast, we'd be selling the house just to keep the minimum distance!"

I wanted to stop, but I was on a roll, and every bit of frustration and impotence of the past two years came spilling out.

"That's all you've been doing since Mom died!" I said, even though I knew I was going to regret it. "Trying, failing, giving up! Spiraling in a sad little circle, so wrapped up in being miserable that you didn't even notice Emma wasn't my friend, anymore!"

My heart was pounding, my eyes were burning, and my stomach churned with every repressed feeling I'd been trying to hold in. My tongue continued on, and I wasn't sure I wanted to stop it, anymore. Dad looked as though I had slapped him, but I couldn't bring myself to care.

"You haven't even been handling your own problems! How could I trust you to handle mine?!"

"Because you haven't told me!" Dad roared. "You didn't say anything! You didn't tell me before the Locker, you didn't tell me after, you didn't even tell me Emma was one of the ones who was doing it! I can't help you if you don't let me, Taylor! I can't help you deal with these things if you don't tell me about them!"

"Because it wouldn't have made a difference!" I yelled back. "Because I almost _died_ in that damn locker, and nothing you said or did changed anything after that! Because you would've tried your damnedest, done your best, and when you failed, you'd go back to moping around like someone had killed Mom all over again, like just because you failed, you didn't deserve to even _pretend_ you still had a daughter!"

"Taylor," he started.

"You spent _four fucking years_ like that!" I screamed over him. " _Four fucking years_ where you barely said one word to me! 'Good morning.' 'Good night.' 'I'll be home late.' _You haven't even told me you loved me since the funeral!_ "

Then, without mercy, fueled by the fire boiling in my gut, I delivered the final blow.

"If that's what happens every time something bad happens and you can't do anything about it, I might as well not even _have_ a father! I might be better off, that way!"

I knew, immediately, that it was a step too far, that it was something I really shouldn't have said, but it was far too late to take it back. They were words designed to hurt, and hurt bad, uttered from the deepest, darkest cruelty in my heart. Even if the feeling behind them was real and raw and completely mine, I'd never wanted to actually give it voice.

It was the look of startled pain that managed to cool some of the anger, or at least snap me out of it enough to realize exactly what I'd been saying. For an eternity compressed into a handful of seconds, we just stared at each other, Dad's mouth working but not saying anything and cooling tear tracks carved into my cheeks.

Then, the guilt started to set in, and the horror at myself followed it quickly, and suddenly, that pickup truck was too crowded and small. I needed to get out, get away, be somewhere, anywhere, else, somewhere where the walls weren't so tight.

The door was opening before I even thought about what I was about to do, and then I was sliding out of my seat and onto the driveway.

"Taylor!" I heard Dad call after me, but I ignored him.

Instead, I rushed into the house, taking every stair in my way two steps at a time as I made my way to my room. I didn't bother to change or throw myself on my bed; I grabbed my backpack and a small, black case, then emptied my bag onto my mattress, uncaring of how haphazardly all of my books and papers landed, and shoved that black case into my bag.

Maybe if I'd been thinking more clearly, I might have done things differently. Maybe I would've grabbed some lunch or maybe I would have grabbed the little scrap of paper with Lisa's phone number on it. Maybe, if I wasn't still riding along the realization that Sophia was Shadow Stalker, if I hadn't just blown up at Dad, if this wasn't the capstone on two years of hell, I might have stayed and just had a civil conversation.

But I didn't. The minute my bag was zipped back up and slung over my shoulders, I was out of my room again and bounding towards the back door.

"Taylor!" Dad called again, and I could hear the front door as he came inside. "Taylor, wait!"

I didn't listen. I didn't _want_ to listen. Even if I'd said some things to him that I hadn't wanted to, it didn't mean that I hadn't _meant_ them, that somewhere inside of me, some part of me wasn't howling each and every one of them over and over again.

I just… I _couldn't_ be there, right then. Not right then, not with Dad.

I was out the back door a few seconds later, then I was taking off — where to, I had no idea, just that it wasn't at home and it wasn't with Dad. My feet carried me along without any input from my head, and even when my lungs started to burn and my muscles started to ache, I kept going. Taking a run every morning since January was probably what helped me along.

By the time I finally stopped, I found myself downtown, again. The streets were mostly empty, with a few stragglers here and there who were probably making their way back to work after their lunch break, and most of the buildings around me were short, one-to-two story things that served as home to fast food restaurants and minor real estate agencies. A few office buildings were interspersed here and there, but nothing like the Medhall building.

For a few moments, I just stood there dumbly, panting and sweating as my racing heart started to slow, and I felt lost.

But I had had a vague idea of what I was doing. Maybe I hadn't exactly planned it out or anything, hadn't even bothered to think about where I was going to go, but I'd at least had an inkling of what I would be doing when I got there.

So, I found there nearest abandoned alleyway, waited until I was sure no one was watching, then jogged over to it and ducked behind a dumpster. A moment later, I was in my base Breaker form, costume and all, with my bag still settled on my shoulders, and I used my increased strength to vault up and onto the nearest rooftop.

The gravel crunched softly beneath my feet when I landed, and when I looked around, there wasn't much up there with me: a raised, narrow structure with a door that likely led back down into the shop or whatever it was beneath me, a few pipes that spewed steam — probably from the furnace or whatever — and a squat, boxy thing that was probably the AC unit.

I strode over to the raised structure, slid my bag off of my shoulders, then dropped down and leaned back against it. I let my head fall into my hands — if it weren't for the mask and lenses, I would've been pressing the heels of my palms against my eyes.

It was so fucking stupid. So Dad hadn't been the most engaging father since Mom died. So he wasn't that helpful most days and he couldn't do anything about my problems. So I'd felt lost and frustrated and alone because he hadn't been able to handle Mom's death. So he'd thrown himself into his work to try and deal with it all. None of those things made it okay to throw it all back in his face like he'd dropped me on a street corner and told me to figure things out for myself.

Dad wasn't the only one who'd fallen apart, after all. I had, too. I'd been getting better, before Emma turned into a massive bitch. I'd been…not coping, exactly, but managing. Surviving. One day at a time. That wasn't much different than Dad, really. Just…things had gotten shittier for me because of Emma and the Trio, and Dad and I…when it came down to it, we just didn't have the same weight to throw around and get things done.

Dad couldn't get the city to restart the ferry. Dad couldn't throw around the same weight as Alan Barnes. Me, I wasn't popular enough or pretty enough or rich enough to be more than a blip on the radar for Winslow's staff and bottom line.

Just…fuck, I wished Mom was alive. She always seemed to know how to do anything.

I reached around for my backpack and unzipped it, pulling out the black case I'd put inside it. Then, I let the bag drop and opened the case, and there, sitting pristinely in three different parts, wedged perfectly into the slots that had been molded for it, was my mother's flute.

It had taken a lot of work to get it back, a couple of acts that I was fairly sure were illegal in some way or form, but I hadn't cared, since it'd been stolen out of my locker to begin with. Once I'd stolen it back from the hidey hole where Sophia had stashed it, I'd had to sit down for several hours over the course of about a week to return it to its original, untarnished condition, but I had, in the end, gotten it back to the way it'd been when it was stolen.

It might have been an incredibly mundane usage for powers that could bend the fabric of reality to my will, but out of all the things I'd done with them so far, this was the one where I'd been most thankful for Medea's magic.

And of course, once it was back in shape, I'd gone further and enchanted it to be unbreakable and stainless and eternally clean… Half a dozen different properties had been added to it, just to make sure that Emma and Sophia could never ruin it again. In fact, it would probably remain, perfect and pristine, long after Brockton Bay had decayed into dust.

An eternal memento to remember my dead mother. That suited me just fine.

I slotted the pieces together with practiced efficiency, connecting the three parts together so that they formed the united whole. When I was done, I held the gleaming silver flute as one, long item, stretching across my folded legs from knee to knee.

I couldn't start just yet, though. There was one more thing missing.

I closed my eyes and let out a breath. I reached out and through myself, into that vast beyond.

"Set. Include."

The hero I'd chosen connected to me, infused me, and I felt her power become my own — but only a fraction, a fragment, not her whole might.

 **Mentoring Great Heroes**

"Aite Láechrad."

It would be another incredibly mundane usage of a mind-boggling power capable of twisting reality to my will, but I'd already done this sort of thing before — had been doing it for almost two months, before I started playing around with magic and got distracted. Doing it again would be nothing new.

I picked the skill I'd chosen, "Flutist," and I could see the progress I'd already made. Rank E, to put it into words. Barely competent. Knowledge of the basics, ability to reproduce simple melodies, but not the sort of thing you'd take to a concert hall or something that would get you into a symphony orchestra.

With that Noble Phantasm active, I lifted the flute to my lips, aligned the mouthpiece, closed my eyes, and started to play.

I was terrible. I could freely admit that. There were kids half my age who were probably much better and more experienced, and even to a high school orchestra, I would have sounded like a halfway decent hack, if even that. I didn't care, though, because I was getting better. I didn't care, because even at such a low level, I was already good enough to match someone who'd been playing the flute for a year. I didn't care, because Aite Láechrad would let me master this before summer was out.

This was a connection to my mother, and I wasn't about to let anything stop me from keeping it.

I must've played for nearly three hours, working my way through a few melodies I knew more by instinct than by memory. _Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star_ , _Frere Jacques_ , and eventually, _Ode to Joy_ came out and echoed over that little rooftop, and as I sat there, playing them, for a few moments, I could almost imagine Mom sitting across from me, playing them, too.

Then, aggressively, I moved onto _Fur Elise_ , and _Greensleeves_ , and finally, _Danny Boy_. The last one had a weird feeling to it, because Dad's name was Danny, and maybe that was a strange connection to make, but it was one I couldn't help making.

When at last my lips were too numb to keep going, I opened my eyes and set the flute down on my knees. The position of the sun had changed drastically, and the stairwell I'd rested my back against cast a long shadow that engulfed me entirely.

For several minutes, I just sat there. I felt…calmer, somehow, than I had when I'd come up here. Not better, perhaps, because the Sophia-Shadow Stalker problem still gnawed at me, but more like I could handle it, now.

Dad was probably worried sick, though.

I pulled the flute back apart into its three pieces, then carefully put them back in the case I'd brought them in and snapped it shut. Once that was done, I stuffed the case back in my backpack, slipped it over my shoulders again, and walked over to the ledge where I'd first come up onto the rooftop.

My base Breaker form made the landing easy, as it had yesterday when I was meeting Lisa. When I was sure no one was coming to investigate the sound of me hitting the ground, I dropped back down to normal, ordinary Taylor Hebert and stepped back out into the street, where rush hour traffic waited.

For a moment, I thought about trying to catch a bus and make my way back home like that, but rush hour traffic in Brockton Bay was _hell_. Not as bad as, say, New York City was supposed to be, but from the stories I'd heard from Dad, and even from what I was seeing now, it wasn't unusual to spend fifteen or twenty minutes stuck in the same spot. Dad was already going to be worried enough; I didn't want to add waiting another hour and a half to it, not when going by foot was probably going to be faster.

Fortunately, my shoes were one of the things I'd enchanted when I figured out enchanting, so even though they hadn't really been designed for running, they were still comfortable enough that they wouldn't kill my feet for running in them.

So, I ran. I made sure to pace myself better than I had on my half-frantic sprint from the house, earlier, so it took me about twenty minutes, in all, to make it back to my neighborhood, where I slowed down to more of a jog. It was another five before my house came into view.

And there, sitting on the front porch and obviously waiting for me, was Dad.

I hesitated. A handful of seconds passed as I stood there, half-ready to go back to him, but they felt like hours, and as I stayed there, just across the street from our front porch, I worried.

What if he was still angry at me?

What if he couldn't forgive me, after the terrible, terrible things I'd said to him?

What if we just started arguing again?

What if he didn't want me back?

I'd run off after saying a bunch of really mean, really awful things that felt good at the time, things that I'd said just to hurt him as badly as I could. Some of those things…I didn't know how I could forgive them, if I was in his shoes, especially since they seemed now like the sorts of things Emma might say, the sorts of things she'd used to torment me for two years.

I… I'd just started to get Dad back. He'd just started to really smile and laugh, again. It'd barely been a few days since he'd started making those corny jokes and quoting his favorite movies, again. What if I'd ruined that, driven him back and away, again? What if all of that disappeared, and we went back to the past four years, where we barely talked and never said more than two words to each other at a time?

I didn't think I could bear it. Not again. I'd lost Mom, and then in the aftermath, I'd lost Dad. I didn't think I could bear to lose him again, just as I was getting him back.

But Dad took the decision out of my hands; he looked up and saw me, and as something like relief stretched across his face, he shouted, "Taylor!"

Then, he was running towards me, crossing the lawn in great, loping strides, and before I could think about it anymore, my legs started moving on their own and I was running towards him, too. We met somewhere in the middle, colliding with a force that nearly left me breathless, and he wrapped me in the tightest hug I could ever remember getting, and I hugged him back just as hard.

"Thank god, you're home," he murmured into my hair. "You're home, you're home, you're home!"

"I'm sorry," I said into his shirt, and suddenly, I was crying, and I didn't know why, and I didn't care why. It felt like all of the nastiness I'd leveled his way earlier was being washed away, like I was being wiped clean of all those terrible thoughts and feelings, like with every tear, they were leaving me. "I'm sorry, Dad. I'm sorry."

"It's okay," Dad told me soothingly. The hand in my hair started stroking the back of my head. "Oh, Taylor, it's okay."

I could feel something wet soaking into my hair, and I realized that Dad must have been crying, too. He rocked us back and forth from side to side, and I felt like a little girl, again, like I'd just come running to him after a nightmare. The years of just surviving, of barely talking, of saying so little that we'd become two strangers living in the same home, they melted away, and Dad and I were a family, again — still broken, still missing a very important piece, still missing the third part that would complete us, but still a family.

"You're home. That's all that matters. It's okay."

And for the first time in almost four years, I believed him.

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

 **Not sure I hit the emotional points quite as well as I wanted to, here, but it was strangely hard to write that argument at the beginning of the chapter. Next chapter, however, should be better - and we get to see more Lisa.**

 **As always, read, review, and enjoy.**

 **And for early access to chapters and bonus content:**

 **p a treon . com (slash) James_D_Fawkes**


	19. Trust 3-2

**Trust 3.2**

Even a good night's sleep in my enchanted bed wasn't enough to really improve my mood; I woke up on Wednesday morning refreshed, awake, and well-rested, but nonetheless, still a little grouchy.

Dad and I had made up, mostly. There hadn't been anymore yelling or shouting or insulting, and we had a normal, if a little quiet, dinner. Afterwards, we'd just…talked. We talked about what had happened, we talked about all of the things I'd said — the feelings behind them more than the actual content — and I told him everything.

Well, not _quite_ everything. I still didn't… The day had already been a long one, and the bullying and all that had been happening at school was already a heavy enough subject, and I'd even shown him the journals I'd been keeping about it all. Adding the whole, "I have powers," talk on top of that felt like just too much to deal with in one evening, so I'd kept that one to myself and made a silent promise to bring it up later, once this whole situation blew over and the shadow of Sophia's death wasn't still hanging over us.

Talking about it, however, still didn't make all of the frustration and the anger go away. I hadn't quite come to terms with it just yet, I didn't think, the idea that Sophia and Shadow Stalker were the same person, that one of my tormentors had been a government-sponsored hero. I didn't feel like blowing something up anymore, but that didn't mean everything was suddenly sunshine and rainbows, either.

So, I woke up feeling…not tired, exactly, but less than enthusiastic about climbing out of bed. I had no idea how I was going to handle going back to school and facing the Trio-minus-one, again, or even what would happen, now that they were down their "enforcer." I had no idea how this was going to affect the social dynamics of my everyday life, no idea how this would affect the bullying, and no idea if things would (miraculously) improve, now that Winslow didn't have a Ward to cover for as an excuse for leaving me out to dry. I wasn't particularly excited to find out, either.

There wasn't much for it, though. Even if I didn't want to, I was going to have to face it eventually, and no amount of procrastinating or dragging my feet was going to stop the inevitable, so I groaned into my pillow and pulled myself out of bed. As an afterthought, I went to shut off my alarm, only to realize halfway through the motion that I'd forgotten to set it last night.

If that didn't say something about how long and trying a day yesterday was…

Dad was already there when I made it to the kitchen, chugging a steaming cup of coffee as he cooked breakfast. He glanced blearily over at me, and I saw dark circles under his eyes, which explained the coffee — he probably hadn't gotten much sleep, last night. If it wasn't for my enchanted bed, I probably wouldn't have, either.

"Morning," he croaked groggily.

"Morning," I managed to mumble in reply.

"Scrambled eggs and toast okay with you?"

"Sure."

I sat down and set about slipping on my running shoes as Dad continued to make breakfast. The silence persisted the whole while, broken only by the sizzle of the eggs cooking; Dad didn't really look up to holding a conversation, and I didn't know what to really talk about that wasn't one of the things we'd discussed last night. I…didn't want to be the one to bring any of those up, again, either.

Dad came over to the table a few minutes later carrying two plates. One, he set down at his own place, and the other, he set down in front of me. I started buttering my toast as he went back to retrieve his coffee, then he sat down across from me and we ate.

It was…quiet and a little awkward. If I wasn't in the middle of eating, I probably would have been fidgeting anxiously. Dad looked…honestly, dead on his feet. He was moving slowly, fumbling with his fork, and twice, he had overreached and nearly knocked his coffee over, that was how out of it he was. I was beginning to doubt he'd gotten _any_ sleep, last night, let alone enough to function normally.

I finished much sooner than he did, but when I reached for my dishes to go and wash them, Dad's hand shot out with surprising quickness and held me there. I looked back at him, halfway out of my chair.

"Dad?"

He kept chewing for a moment and swallowed before he talked.

"You're staying home, today," he told me as a fact, looking me straight in the eye. "Tomorrow, too. The rest of the week, if it comes to that. You're not going back to that school until I've had a few words with Principal Blackwell."

I blinked, surprised. "I, uh. Okay."

"I took today off. Might take tomorrow off, too, if I have to. I'm sure I'll be having words with Alan, by the time it's all said and done, too."

His grip on my wrist slackened and he gave the back of my hand a couple gentle pats.

"Go ahead and go on your run," he said. "Be safe."

"Right," I replied, still a little off balance. "Yeah. Sure I will."

I continued where I left off and went to wash my dishes, glancing back at Dad on the way. Dad just kept on eating, going just as slow as before, and didn't seem to notice me watching him.

That was different, I found myself thinking as the water ran. A little strange, if I was honest. I wasn't exactly sure what I'd expected to have happen, after what I'd told him last night, but in hindsight, confronting the problem head-on probably should have been somewhere on my list. That was the kind of person Dad was, after all. He had to be, to keep going when the Dockworkers Union was only barely treading water.

I stopped for a scant second as I realized I was smiling, and when I looked up into the window that looked out from the kitchen, I could see my face reflected in the glass. It wasn't a happy smile, not really, because I wasn't happy, exactly. Just…it felt good, to have some of the old Dad back. It felt good to finally have someone on my side, for once.

When I finished and made to make my way outside, I hesitated for a brief moment as I passed by Dad, had a few seconds of indecision, then I leaned over, wrapped my arms around him from behind, and gave him a squeeze. Into his ear, I muttered, "Thanks, Dad."

He mumbled something back that I couldn't quite make out, but I understood the sentiment well enough. I gave him another quick squeeze, then let go, turned towards the door that led outside, and I left.

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

Dad was already gone by the time I got out of the shower, and once I'd toweled down, dried off, and gotten dressed, it was to find that I didn't really have anything to do. No homework, in part because I'd left school halfway through the day on Monday and Friday, and just hadn't gone yesterday (after that whole… _mess_ , yesterday morning).

I _could_ , maybe, have gone and gotten some training in or something. Work on one of my unfinished projects. I had a whole day free, now, after all, and that was a lot of time that I could spend getting done some of the things I needed to get done. I'd fallen behind with my martial arts training, after all.

I just didn't feel like it.

I was still… just… _Sophia was Shadow Stalker_. It felt like that was going to keep intruding on my day, because my thoughts kept going back that way. That knowledge, plus the knowledge of how she died, the knowledge that my defenses were what killed her…

I hadn't been able to tell anyone that. Not Dad, especially, because that opened the can of worms that was, _"Hey, Dad, I have powers_." Not the police or the PRT, because even if I'd been so inclined… Yeah, fuck that. Shadow Stalker was a Ward, and I wasn't about to go explaining to the PRT this crazy, fucked up mess that was this whole situation.

I still wasn't sure if I even believed that they hadn't known what she'd been getting up to, what she'd been doing to me at Winslow. How could I trust them with this when I couldn't even trust them about that?

I sighed as I flopped down onto my bed, but my ceiling didn't offer any answers.

Maybe I should have picked up precognition earlier, I thought wryly. Aífe wasn't especially good at it, but if I'd started on it way back when, maybe I could have seen this whole shitstorm coming before it even happened. Then, I wouldn't be lying there wondering what the hell I was going to do.

Maybe…what I _really_ needed was someone to talk to about this thing. Someone who could understand the cape side, like I wasn't ready to talk to Dad about, yet. Someone I could talk to about this who would understand why this whole mess was so fucking messy, with Sophia as Shadow Stalker and me as Apocrypha, with my Dragon Teeth and my fortress of a house.

I turned my head to the side and eyed the innocuous scrap of paper sitting on my desk, where I'd put it two days ago before I went to bed. It was creased from where I'd folded it up, so I couldn't see everything, but I'd already memorized what was written on it.

… _Yeah_ , I thought. _I could go for some good tea_.

I hefted myself off of my bed and swiped the paper off of my desk as I left my room. I thought about sending her a message on PHO, but halfway to our old computer, I changed my mind and made for the phone, instead.

Lisa answered by the third ring.

" _Hello?"_

She sounded tired, but then it was — I glanced at the clock — only about eight o'clock. I had no idea whether or not Lisa went to school or where, or even if she had parents or guardians or whatever, and in hindsight, it was kind of stupid to expect that she'd be off for the day just because I was.

"Lisa?" I asked, suddenly less sure of myself.

" _Taylor?"_

"Yeah," I answered. "I, uh… I know it's a little early, and I dunno if you have school…"

" _I got my GED,"_ said Lisa, sounding kind of amused. _"So no. I don't have school."_

"Right. Yeah. Okay, good."

" _Everything okay, Taylor?"_

"I…" I sighed, ran my hand over my face. "Are you free, today?"

" _I don't have anything pressing planned, no."_

"I… I mean, that is… Would you…"

Good fucking god. It wasn't like I was trying to ask her on an actual date.

" _Sure,"_ said Lisa, sparing me further embarrassment. _"Let me grab a quick shower, first, but after that… Say, the coffee shop from Monday, about ten o'clock? That good for you?"_

"Yeah," I said, relieved. "Yeah, sure. Ten sounds fine."

" _Wow, this_ must _be pretty heavy, whatever it is you need to talk about. I could feel the weight lifting from your shoulders from over here."_

"I…"

One of these days, I was going to ask her how she did that. Powers, obviously, but exactly what those were, I had no idea.

I sighed again. "Yeah, I'll explain later. Just… See you soon?"

" _Ten o'clock. Promise."_

 _Click._

I hung the phone up and made my way back up to my room, and I spent the next hour sitting on the floor, tinkering with one of my projects without really getting anything done. My mind was too focused on meeting up with Lisa, so when nine o'clock came around, I hadn't really accomplished anything except to half-heartedly examine what I'd already finished.

Then, I got changed, and ten minutes later, I was locking the front door behind me and looking out at the yard, where the only sign of what had happened yesterday was the splotch of copper that still stained the spots where Sophia's body had lain. Even that would probably be washed away on the first good rain.

I caught the nine-ten bus at my usual stop about a block away from my house, and a little over thirty minutes later, I was stepping off on the edges of the Boardwalk, where all the shops were just starting to open their doors. There weren't many people out there with me, just what I assumed were a few tourists who apparently hadn't heard that Brockton Bay wasn't the nicest of cities to visit, and I didn't imagine that most of those shops saw much patronage in the early morning on a weekday.

Probably made a killing around lunchtime and after school, though.

I turned away from the Boardwalk and navigated back to that little coffee shop, trying to remember how Lisa and I had gotten there on Monday (and taking a few wrong turns along the way, much to my frustration), and by the time I finally caught sight of that sign, "AHNENERBE," again, it was just five minutes before ten.

The bell jingled on my way inside, and if possible, the little shop was even emptier than it had been two days ago. There were a few people sitting at some of the tables beneath the front windows, but for the most part, I was really the only one there.

I glanced around, but Lisa was nowhere to be seen, so I meandered through the tables and made my way to the one she and I had taken before, then took a seat. Nothing left to do now except wait.

Five minutes passed like an eternity, stretching every second out as an eon, then my watch let out a little chime to mark ten o'clock. There was no sign of Lisa. Another five minutes went by, and somewhere along the line, I started drumming my fingers along the table to no particular tune, wondering what was taking her.

I was just starting to worry when a mug of steaming hot tea was set down in front of me and I startled, jerking back in my chair. A grinning Lisa was standing next to me when my head swung around to follow the arm holding the mug of tea.

"Earl Grey, no cream, three sugars, just like last time," she said, and then she walked around the table and slid into the chair across from me. In her other hand, she had a mug of her own coffee, which she took a quick, careful sip of as she sat down.

"You look chipper this morning," she commented.

"Yeah…" I said lamely.

I hooked my fingers through the handle on my mug and took my first sip of tea; it was just as wonderful and just as amazing as it had been the first time, and for a moment, I thought that I would be spoiled if I drank here too often.

For several minutes, we sat in silence, me sipping occasionally at my tea while Lisa stared straight at me, her index finger tapping against the ceramic of her cup. I considered her from across the table, too, wondering how I should broach the subject, wondering how much I should tell her. If I tried to explain everything…well, then I'd basically have to tell her my life story, wouldn't I? Emma, Sophia, the bullying, all of it.

The thing of it was, I didn't know Lisa all that well. I'd called her and asked her to meet up because she was the only person I knew who I could talk to about the cape side of my life, the only person I could probably call a friend, right now. I…didn't really have anyone else, and after the whole mess yesterday, I could probably consider the Wards bridge burnt.

…Okay, yes, the Wards bridge was burnt. Even if they were willing to accept me once they found out Shadow Stalker had died to my defenses, I didn't think _I_ wanted anything to do with _them_ anymore.

Either way, it was a lot of trust to place in one person, especially one I'd basically just met, and I… damn it, I didn't want another Emma. I didn't want another friend who'd turn on me and use everything I told her against me. If I had to go through that again… I didn't think I could —

"Hey."

A hand landed on mine, gentle, friendly, comforting, and I blinked and looked up from my tea to Lisa's smile.

"It's fine, I promise. If you need a minute, take a minute. I've got nothing else to do today." Her lips twitched on the one side. "Just…don't worry so much? I can practically _feel_ it over here, and if you stress out too much, you'll give yourself wrinkles."

I frowned down at my tea, and for a moment, I hesitated. I still wasn't sure how much I wanted to tell her, how deep into this whole mess I was willing to take her, how… how much of my past traumas I was willing to drag up and show her. Whether I'd be willing to tell her about the Locker.

At the very least, however, I could tell her the thing that had been bothering me for the past day.

So, I just blurted it out: "Sophia Hess was Shadow Stalker."

Lisa jerked as though she'd been slapped. "Shit!" she hissed. "Taylor, what are you — the Unwritten Rules! Why… Wait." She stopped and peered at me intensely. "You said 'was.' Past tense. As in, she's not, anymore."

I swallowed. "No, she's not. She's — "

"Dead," Lisa concluded. She hissed out a sigh. "And you killed her. Fuck." Her mouth twisted into a grimace as she looked at me. "No, not you yourself, but…your powers? Kind of, but not really? Something related to your powers, created from them? I… Fuck."

She massaged the bridge of her nose, eyes clenched shut, as though to ward off a migraine.

"I think you'd better start at the beginning."

I frowned and looked back down into my mug, watching the ruddy brown swirl around the sides. At the beginning, huh? I… Yeah. I still wasn't sure I was ready to trust her enough to tell her everything.

"I was heading out for my morning run, yesterday," I said slowly, "and I found her body — Shadow Stalker's — lying in two pieces on my front lawn. Cut clean in half. No signs of a fight. Nobody'd heard a thing when it was happening."

"Which is strange for a cape fight, right," said Lisa, nodding a little. "They're not always… _loud_ , exactly, but they're not completely silent either. I'm not seeing how that means you've got to be the one that killed her."

I scowled down at my tea and didn't answer for a moment. I knew I should feel bad that I'd killed Sophia, even indirectly as it was, but it still just felt like a relief, like a bleak fog had been lifted from my life. My powers had killed a person, my home defenses had killed a teenage girl, had mercilessly cut her in half, and I was just glad that I would never have to see her face again.

"It couldn't have been anyone else," I told her. "She was on _my_ front lawn. And she was _cut in half_."

"So?"

"So, I… I set up these defenses around my house —"

"Like traps?" suggested Lisa.

"No," I said. "No, um, more like…deterrents. Things to keep burglars or…or, well, enemies I might make out of my house. That was, uh, before you told me about the Unwritten Rules, so I thought, well, I don't know, Lung or Kaiser or someone might try to come after me, and…"

"So, you built a bunch of things that would…make them go away?"

"Not…just go away," I said. "They, uh, kind of escalate. If one doesn't work, the next one is supposed to be…more serious, I guess. Because getting to it means the, uh, the attacker is more serious."

"So… what kind of escalation are we talking about, here?" Lisa asked. "I mean, going from 'beware of dog' to 'I have a shotgun' might be reasonable, but going from 'trespassers will be shot' to 'nuke the entire neighborhood' is kind of extreme."

I pursed my lips, and for a moment, I debated the merits of telling her exactly how my house was defended, but I'd been willing to trust her _this_ far, hadn't I? And even if I _did_ tell her, that didn't mean she had any idea of how to get around them.

Hell, short of dismantling them with my powers or taking out the entire city, _I_ didn't know how to get around them.

"At the edges," I explained slowly, "there's a…a field. A kind of No Man's Land. To attack the house, you have to pass through it, and when you do, it hits you with this… this feeling of, _this is a bad idea_. Just…a feeling of unease, a _fear_ , that if you keep going, something bad is going to happen."

Lisa froze, mug halfway to her mouth, and set it back down.

" _That_ ," she said deliberately, "sounds like a _Master_ power."

"I… I guess?"

I'd never really considered it, hadn't had any reason to — I'd just really learned about Master powers two days ago, when Lisa herself told me about them, and the defenses around my house were already about a month old. I'd just never made the connection.

I could see it now, though. Masters were those who influenced the minds of others, right? Who took control of other people, manipulated what they felt, how they acted? Yeah, the first line of defense around my house did that sort of thing. It…I'd wanted an option, my first option, to be a method of defending my home without violence or actually hurting anyone, and making them too afraid to even _approach_ the house seemed like a pretty good alternative to…to something like had happened to Sophia.

"Is it…really that big of a deal?"

Lisa hummed. "Yes and no. Yes, if you get on the wrong end of the PRT and make an enemy out of them, they'll use whatever they can to ruin your good name, and that includes calling something like that an evil Master power. No, because if you don't give them a reason to screw you over, the PRT would do like they did with Glory Girl's aura and call that a Shaker power."

The knot in my chest that I hadn't really noticed loosened a little.

"So, that's stage one," said Lisa. "But a big dose of fear wouldn't have cut Shadow Stalker in half, like you said she was; what's stage two, then?"

"Dragon Teeth."

Lisa blinked and gave me a strange look. "What?"

"Dragon — uh, in the legend of, um, Jason and Medea, during the quest for the Golden Fleece —"

"They sow the ground with dragon's teeth, and out sprout fully armed warriors, right," Lisa finished for me. "You…have some of those guarding your house?"

"A few…dozen," I admitted.

"A small army, in other words."

When she put it like that, it sounded excessive. Was it actually? I didn't know. I'd wanted to be safe; I hadn't worried about overkill, mostly because whoever got past the first line was probably someone who _really_ wanted me — dead or recruited, neither option was very palatable. Half measures wouldn't protect me from someone like Hookwolf or Oni Lee.

"So," she began, summing it up, "Shadow Stalker came to your house, tripped your defenses somehow, made it past stage one, then came face to face with an army of warriors sprouting out of the ground and got killed."

"That…sounds about right, yeah," I said. "It's a little more — I mean, they're only supposed to trigger if it's, you know, someone trying to _attack_ me or Dad, so…"

Lisa looked at me for a moment with a very strange expression on her face. "…Okay. Sure. Intent-based defenses. Why not." She muttered something under her breath that I didn't catch. "The thing that I'm not quite getting is, how did she die?"

I opened my mouth to reply, but she waved her hand impatiently. "I don't mean the obvious," she said. "I mean, Shadow Stalker's power is _made_ for avoiding attacks. As long as she can see it coming, she should be able to phase right through it. So how did she get cut in half in the first place?"

It was a thought I'd had myself the morning previous. How did it turn out that a cape whose power was to turn basically intangible had been killed by an attack, since she could just phase through it? How had Shadow Stalker been killed by a simple sword, when her fighting style had to revolve around letting attacks just pass through her harmlessly?

There was only one answer I'd really been able to come up with.

"Maybe," I said lowly, staring down into my tea, "she was caught by surprise. Maybe my Dragon Teeth killed her before she could react to seeing a bunch of skeletons pop up out of the ground."

Lisa snorted. "You don't give her enough credit."

I glanced at her, and whatever my face looked like, it was enough to startle her.

"Okay, _wow_ , and you have _good reason_ not to," she amended. "But she was pretty hardcore. Very violent. She's gotten into loads of fights in a town where we have an Asian man who transforms into a dragon, a psychopath who turns into a wolf made of blades, and a Neonazi who can summon ghosts that can stab people. An army of skeletons is _not_ gonna surprise her enough to make her drop her guard that badly."

I frowned, and after a moment, I shrugged cluelessly. "I have no idea, then."

Lisa's lips pursed and her brow knitted, like she was trying to think through a puzzle, then she gave a small shake of her head and seemed to give up on it. "Let's just chock it up to weird power interactions," she said. "So, Shadow Stalker came to your house last night, tried to break in and attack you, ran into your dragon's teeth, and wound up in over her head. There's just one thing in all of this that I'm not understanding."

She leaned forward, looking straight into my eyes. I found I couldn't look away, so I stared straight back, unblinking.

"The first thing you said was that Sophia Hess was Shadow Stalker," Lisa said lowly, like she was telling me a secret. "You _knew_ her. Not Shadow Stalker, not that Sophia was Shadow Stalker, at least not until…yesterday? Yesterday. Obviously, there's something between you, none of it good. But what was it that has you so sure she came to your house to try and kill you?"

I was the first one to break eye contact. I turned my gaze away from her, staring down, again, at my mug of tea. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Lisa lean backwards, and I heard her let out a quiet sigh.

I…wasn't sure I wanted to tell her. What Sophia and Emma had done to me…I had just barely told Dad, and even then, I'd basically had to, because it had all been forced out into the open. Telling a girl I'd just met, telling a brand new friend that I'd only known a few days, it felt like… I didn't really have words for it.

Maybe…it was just that I was scared. Lisa had already been so very nice to me, and my experience with that had always ended with Emma and her cronies swooping in, either to ruin my budding friendships or to reveal that it had all been a trick from the beginning. I'd been burned so many, many times, I'd had all of my deepest secrets thrown into the light of day for one girl's twisted amusement, and I didn't want to risk something like that ever again.

I didn't want to mess up the first friendship I'd had in two years just two days after it started.

Lisa was the one who broke the stretching silence.

"I knew something was wrong for a while," she said a little distantly. "But I didn't care, at the time, and I didn't realize what would happen. I just hated him because he was the favorite child who could do no wrong. The popular kid that everyone liked. He tried to be nice to me, to act like a real brother, but even then, I could tell he was acting, so I didn't bother letting him try."

For a moment, she didn't say anything, and when I glanced at her, she was swirling her coffee and watching it spin.

"He committed suicide," she continued at length. "Just…one day, decided he couldn't go on, and took his own life. My brother was gone."

She let out a sigh and took a long swig from her mug, almost like it was alcohol.

"I made the mistake of telling my parents that I'd noticed something wrong but never said anything about it," she went on. "After that, it just started _gnawing_ at me. _Could_ I have stopped it, if I had? My parents, my family, it felt like everyone was saying that I could have saved him, if only I said something about it. And I wondered, too. Were they right? _Could_ I have saved him?"

Lisa chuckled lowly. "I got my powers from that question. Just…had a nightmare, woke up the next morning with powers. And they didn't make anything better. Once my parents figured out I had them, they used me to pad their bank accounts. That's all I became to them, a tool to make more money. Their own personal Thinker to game the system."

She took another long swig from her coffee. "So, I swiped as much money as I could from them, grabbed whatever I couldn't leave behind, and ran away." She smiled at me, a lopsided thing that didn't quite meet her eyes. "Even changed my name to Lisa and left the city. Haven't looked back since."

I closed my eyes and let out a sigh through my nose.

It was…an incredibly personal story she'd just told me. Her Trigger Event, her One Bad Day. I knew why she did it, too. Build a rapport. Extend some trust. People tended to trust more when they felt like they were being trusted. I'd had the technique used on me one too many times not to recognize it.

But… But those girls were doing it to get at me. They were doing it to torment me. Lisa was… Lisa was actually my friend, wasn't she? This wasn't something she was using to hit me harder on the inevitable betrayal, this was _genuine_ trust, wasn't it?

Wasn't it?

So…couldn't I trust her, too?

I… I wanted to.

So badly. So, so badly.

And, well, I'd already trusted her with my true identity, hadn't I? Couldn't I extend this much, too?

"They…hadn't done anything for several weeks before Winter Break," I began slowly, like my mouth had already decided what my brain was still debating. "For a while… I really thought they'd gotten bored and moved on. But on the first day back, I could tell. It was… an instinct. A honed sense I'd picked up to survive. I didn't know what it was, but I knew they were going to do _something_."

I closed my eyes again, and I was back there, the walls pressing in around me, the rot squishing beneath my fingers and feet. The hot air smothering me, suffocating me, clinging to my cheeks and stifling my lungs.

 _Please! Let me out! Someone! Please!_

"They'd filled my locker with used pads and tampons," I went on. "Emptied the biohazard can in the girls' bathrooms, if I had to guess, and shoved as much as they could fit in. Left it to stew over Winter Break, which is as disgusting as it sounds. I could smell it from halfway down the hall."

The rotted blood mixed with the pungent odor of my vomit, and all I could smell was the decay that surrounded me, that choked me, that tried to drown me. All I could smell was death.

 _Someone…anyone…I…I don't c-care who…_

"I puked as soon as I opened my locker," I said flatly. "I was still half bent over when someone grabbed me from behind and shoved me inside, and she locked me in there with the filth and the rot and left me to die. I was sure that I was going to, too."

The heavy sound of my own breathing echoed. My struggling had grown weaker after the adrenaline started to lose effectiveness, so the thuds and clangs of my kicks and pounding against the wall had become muted and weak. I couldn't tell, at that point, whether the laughter I heard, the shrill cackles of my three tormentors, was real or just my imagination.

 _I-I'll…do anything. Anything you want…everything I am… It's all yours. Just please…save me… Save me…_

A great force answered. All of the empty spaces inside of me were filled, and suddenly, something vast, something beyond my understanding, was trying to mould me into her own shape. Everything that was me, everything that was Taylor Hebert, was being overwritten and consumed.

Even with my throat already raw, even with every part of me exhausted, even with all of my energy gone, I had screamed. Screamed until there was no breath left in my lungs, and rejected with all of my will the great force trying to take me.

My Trigger Event. My first Install.

"They told me I was in there for three hours," I finished. "I spent the better part of a week after that either catatonic or in a medically induced coma. The doctors said it was a miracle I hadn't gotten an infection or done serious damage to any of my joints."

I opened my eyes. Lisa was pale and faintly green, with a disturbed look on her face. I noticed her knuckles were white, she was gripping her mug so hard.

"There wasn't enough evidence, so no one was punished, but I knew who it was," I said. A spark of anger coiled in my gut, but I squashed it. " _That's_ why I'm so sure that Shadow Stalker was trying to kill me. She tried in January, for no reason other than I guess she found it fun. After the tongue lashing I gave her in front of all her friends on Monday, she'd have a much better reason, don't you think?"

"Shit," Lisa murmured shakily. "I knew that bitch was unhinged, but seriously…?"

I felt my lips quirk up in a mirthless smile. "She's been making my life a living hell for two years, Lisa. Is it any surprise she's the one who caused my Trigger Event, too?"

Lisa laughed. It was mirthless, too.

"No, I guess not," she said. "Fuck. No wonder…"

She took another long swig of her coffee and drained it until it was gone.

"So, two years of being pushed around by that psycho, and to top it all off, she caused your Trigger."

"Yeah."

"And now she's dead. Killed by you, after a fashion."

I guess that was unavoidable, wasn't it? Even if I hadn't done it on purpose, even if I hadn't meant to, at the end of the day, it was my defenses that had killed her.

"Yeah."

"And you're… okay with that? Happy that she's dead?"

"I…" I hesitated. "I'm not, no. Happy, that is. Relieved, I guess, that she's gone, that I never have to deal with her again. She's out of my life, forever."

Lisa leaned in again. "And it doesn't bother you? You don't feel guilty?"

"…I don't, no," I said at length. "I feel like I should," I admitted. "I feel like I'm supposed to feel guilty. Like…like it should tear me up inside or something. But…I hated her. She and her friends tortured me for two years. I'm… I'm not happy that I killed her, I'm not happy that she's dead, but I'm glad she's gone. Glad that I never have to see her face again."

And, I didn't say, I was also at least a little glad that she'd finally gotten what was coming to her. What she deserved. A little karmic justice, long overdue. Not happy she was dead, but happy she hadn't gotten off scot-free again, to come and torment me another day.

"Good riddance, then."

I blinked and looked up, surprised.

"What?"

"Good riddance," Lisa repeated. "Shadow Stalker was just as much a psycho _in_ costume as you say she was _out_ of costume. The reason they brought her in, caught her and offered her to either be a Ward or go to juvie? It's because she's seriously hurt people. Pretty sure she's got a minor body count, too, from a couple of times when she went a little too far without thinking about the consequences."

Lisa leaned back in her chair a little. "So," she said again, "good riddance. _I_ certainly won't mourn her."

I found myself staring. "You…don't think I'm…"

Lisa snorted and shook her head.

"Honey, you have a right to defend yourself and your home," she told me. "Whatever it is that got her killed, it's not your fault. You gave her ample opportunity to give up and leave. It's not your fault she decided to stay and get herself killed. It's _her_ fault. She made her choices, and she paid for them."

A wash of relief swept over my shoulders and down my back; at least some part of me _had_ felt…maybe not guilty, exactly, but burdened. The fact that it was Sophia had mostly buried it under the complicated mess of feelings — the tangled web of anger at Sophia, betrayal by the PRT that was supposed to be watching her, frustrated understanding of why she had been getting away with everything — but I had still been carrying around the weight of being responsible for someone's death.

I wasn't a killer. I didn't want to _be_ a killer. To have Lisa tell me that I wasn't…

"So," she went on, "I'm still having some trouble wrapping my head around this, but…why you?"

"What?"

Why me…what?

"Why you?" Lisa asked a second time. "What happened that made Shadow Stalker — that made _Sophia_ decide to make you her personal punching bag for two years? What started this whole thing?"

I frowned. "I…don't know. I never did anything to her to warrant… _everything_. But…"

I hesitated for a moment. I'd come here…I hadn't intended to tell her everything. I wasn't sure exactly how much I meant to share, but telling her everything about the Trio was definitely not on the list. It was just… too personal. There was too much of my personal history involved to talk about all of that.

But…

But I'd already gone this far, hadn't I? I'd already told her about my Trigger Event, my One Bad Day. I'd already told her more than I ever really meant to.

What was this little bit more?

"I guess," I began, "it all really started about two years ago, when I came home from Summer Camp…"

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

 **Some hints and clues about Taylor's Trigger Event. Undoubtedly, it's gonna stir up a bunch of theories about who, exactly, her first Install was, but I'm not going to give any answers, yet.**

 **As always, read, review, and enjoy.**

 **And for early access to chapters and bonus content:**

 **p a treon . com (slash) James_D_Fawkes**


	20. Trust 3-3

**Trust 3.3**

Thursday morning wound up being much better than the previous two days. I woke up well-rested and feeling normal, rather than lethargic, and there was a huge weight that had been taken off my shoulders.

I'd told Dad about the bullying, about Emma and her cronies and what they had been doing to me, and the secret burden I'd been carrying about every day had been put out into the open. He was… It was hard to say, exactly. I didn't think "better" was quite the word, but he'd regained some of the fire that had been missing since Mom died.

Then, I'd told Lisa _everything_ — the bullying, the whole situation with Sophia and Shadow Stalker, _everything_ — and not only had she been completely supportive and understanding, but when it was all said and done, she'd _hugged_ me. Not just a quick, half-hearted one, either, but a full-blown, _I'm-gonna-squeeze-til-the-stuffing-comes-out_ bear hug; she'd caught me off guard, first with the hug, then with exactly how much strength she had in those arms of hers.

It said something about my life that I'd gotten so unused to having a friend to hug me when I needed one that Lisa's had shocked me as much as it did.

So, I woke up feeling not happy, exactly, but maybe content. I had a friend, now, who couldn't be swayed by Emma's good looks and popularity, who wouldn't turn her back on me for something as petty as being on the good side of Winslow's top bitch. I had a friend that the Trio couldn't chase away, that no one in that wretched hell could take away from me.

If only I'd had Lisa two years ago, I thought longingly, back when everything started.

That contentment was probably the reason why I woke up later than usual. It was already pushing nine when I rolled out of bed and checked my clock, and Dad had to have been long gone, already. He hadn't really talked much at dinner, last night, probably because of how tired he must have been, but I had to imagine that he would have told me if things had gone well with Principal Blackwell, so he must have gone to have another meeting with her, today.

 _Give her hell, Dad,_ I thought fondly, wishing him luck.

Note to self: enchant Dad's bed sometime soon, too. He deserved to get a good night's sleep just as much as I did and probably needed it more.

Like I thought, the kitchen was empty when I made my way downstairs, my running shoes dangling from one hand, although the lingering scent of food remained. There was, however, a note stuck to the microwave that simply said "BREAKFAST" on it, and when I opened the door, a stack of pancakes and a few rashers of bacon sat on a plate inside.

"Thanks, Dad."

I pulled out the bacon and chewed on a slice — it had long since cooled, but that was fine with me — while I set the microwave to reheat and watched my pancakes spin on the glass plate inside.

When it was done, I sat down at the table and ate my breakfast alone and in silence. When I'd finished eating, I washed my dishes like that, too. It felt weird, if I was being honest. I'd gotten used to eating breakfast with Dad, and even if we hadn't much talked, even if it felt like there was some grand distance between us for the longest time, despite being in the same room, at least there'd been another person with me.

Once my dishes were washed and set aside to dry, I pulled on my shoes, grabbed a spare house key, made sure the door was locked behind me, and left for my run. On my way, I passed the splotch of ruddy brown that marked where Sophia had died and determinedly paid it no mind. I wasn't going to let her ruin my life in death the way she had in life.

It was already almost eleven by the time I got back and had my shower, and I had no idea what to do with the rest of the day. As I was toweling my hair dry, I spied the little slip of paper with Lisa's username and phone number on it, and I caught myself smiling a little.

It would have been fun to spend the day with Lisa again, just doing stupid, pointless, teenage girl things that I'd never had the chance to do before Emma turned on me. Maybe…go window shopping, or hang out on the Boardwalk, or see one of Parian's puppet shows, again, if she was doing one today. Get ice cream, sit in the park, and just talk about nothing of import for a few hours. I would have enjoyed that slice of normalcy, of just being myself, after two years of hiding everything away and being denied.

Lisa told me she was going to be busy today, though. She'd told me as much yesterday.

So maybe I should get some more martial arts training in, or finish that project I'd been meaning to do.

I looked down at my hand, curling and unfurling my fist. "Rank C" was how my powers measured my progress with Aife's ancient martial arts. Strong, skilled, but not at the level where I could match up against the warriors of ancient Ireland. I still had a long way to go, a long road ahead of me, until I reached mastery. It'd be a good idea to get some more practice in.

Yeah. I nodded to myself, decision made. I was going to go and get some training in, polish these skills a little bit more. Next time I fought someone like Lung, I could just use these martial arts to beat him senseless before he could even _start_ to transform.

I knelt down and reached under my bed for the case containing my cheap video camera, but what I wound up dragging out from there was something entirely different — a plastic box, small and rectangular, with picture of Alexandria posed heroically plastered across the front of it. It was the lunchbox full of cash that Lisa had handed to me on Monday.

I stopped and set it down on my bed, staring at it. I felt my lips work into a frown.

I hadn't figured out what to do with it, since then. A part of me still thought I should have turned it into the police or something, but then I would have had to explain where I'd gotten it and who had given it to me. That would have gotten Lisa into trouble, and probably me, too, and it might have outed the both of us on top of that, and neither of those things were something I wanted.

So, I'd thrown it under my bed and just forgotten about it for the past few days. That was fair, I thought, considering all that had happened on Tuesday. Anyone would have forgotten about it after finding a dead body on the front lawn.

I still wasn't sure what to do with it. It was drug money, after all. Dirty. Bought with blood and pain. In fact, Lisa said it was _Lung's_ money, swiped from right under his nose, so that meant it was connected to _parahuman_ crime, too. In that case, maybe what I should really do was hand it over to the PRT and —

 _Sophia Hess was Shadow Stalker._ A great swell of anger surged in my gut, and I had to take deep breaths and close my eyes to force it down.

— No, I decided. Forget the PRT. Forget them and their Wards. Forget them and their enabling of the psycho who'd been tormenting me for nearly two years. Forget them. They'd probably take this money and use it to pay for Sophia's funeral or a plaque with her name on it on some wall somewhere, honoring her "heroic sacrifice." That was all I'd get for turning it into them.

So no, I wasn't going to turn it into the PRT. In fact, I was going to do the exact opposite.

I grabbed my backpack, pulled Mom's flute out and set it aside, made sure the rest of the bag was empty, then stuffed the lunchbox into it and zipped it closed.

I was going to deposit this cash in my savings account, at least some of it. Set that towards my college fund. Then, I'd use what I didn't deposit to buy myself a cellphone that I could use to talk with Lisa, my new friend that Sophia would have tried her best to turn against me. I was going to use this money and I was going to have everything Sophia and Emma had ever tried to take away from me.

Forget about where it came from. Forget about the PRT. This money was my recompense, a poor and inadequate remuneration, for two years of hell. If they didn't think that was right and just, then they should have been keeping a better eye on their pet psychopath.

I got dressed quickly, then grabbed my bag and a spare house key on my way out the door. If I was quick, I could make it in time for the eleven-ten bus for downtown and be at the bank before noon.

I had a deposit to make.

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

It was raining by the time I made it through the tall, glass doors of Brockton Bay Central Bank, and my hair had been soaked through thoroughly. Anything that hadn't been protected by my hood was positively dripping, and even what had been was still damp enough to make me look like I'd just taken a dip in a pool.

If only I'd brought an umbrella.

Standing just inside the doors, however, dripping rainwater all over the marble floors, I suddenly felt out of place. Brockton Bay Central Bank was a large, opulent building, so much so that it was busy enough to warrant cushioned chairs lined up along either side of the main aisle. The marble floors I mentioned were patterned with faded green compass roses on smooth, beige tiles, and equally smooth marble pillars jutted up and towards the ceiling like they'd been sculpted in Ancient Greece itself.

To say nothing of the people I found as I climbed the short set of stairs that led up from the front door; most of them were dressed in the finery of the business elite, with pantsuits and three piece suits and silk blouses. Most of _those_ people were being taken care of personally off to the side in the open offices, separated from the main lobby by short, three-foot walls. The rest of the people milling about were waiting in line to meet with one of the tellers at the far end across from the front door.

Without exception, they were all adults, all twice or more my age, and they made me feel incredibly young and small by comparison.

Well. Maybe not small. I was still taller than any of the women I saw.

Rather than insert myself into one of the lines stretching out from the tellers, I made my way over to one side and plopped myself down wetly a few seats away from the only person there who looked my age — a mousy girl with curly brown hair and freckles who was busying herself with her cellphone.

I wasn't quite sure what to do while I waited, hugging my backpack against my chest and shivering a little. I didn't have a cellphone I could text Lisa on or…play games, I guess. I didn't have one of those handheld video game systems I'd seen around, sometimes, either, because I'd never been one much for video games. I also, rather shortsightedly, hadn't grabbed a book to read before I left home, which left me with not much of anything to do at all.

People watching, maybe, but as I looked around, there wasn't anyone particularly interesting in the bank. Maybe if the Mayor or someone like that was there… Mostly, though, it was just businessmen and women I didn't recognize asking for loans or something or housewives depositing their husbands' pay checks.

Honestly, some of the tellers looked almost as bored as I was. I couldn't imagine working a job like that, talking to dozens or hundreds of people every day, handling their money, constantly aware that a bank robber could show up with a gun at any moment. It would be boring, until suddenly it was terrifying.

Eventually, though, my gaze wound up back on the girl a few seats down, no matter how many times I looked away. She was nothing special, she didn't have the kind of remarkable beauty that Lisa and Emma did. She was still prettier than me, I thought, but not incredibly so. I was sure I hadn't ever met her before, either, because she didn't look anything like any of the other girls who went to Winslow; her clothes were better in a way that spoke of the privilege of upper middle class, rather than the more modest means of my own school's girls.

I couldn't help the feeling that I recognized her, though. I had no idea where from, but I had this strange certainty that I'd seen her face before, that I knew her name, even though I was equally sure that I'd never met her even once in my life. I couldn't even imagine what her voice sounded like.

Maybe she was someone I'd known in middle school? That could be it. Emma had been my only real friend since childhood, but I'd had plenty of acquaintances who I was on, if not friendly, then cordial terms during my younger years. She could be one of the girls I'd shared a class or two with before Emma turned on me and Winslow became my own personal hell.

That…didn't feel right, though.

Maybe…she was someone I'd met on my morning runs, then? Someone I'd seen on my route, but never actually talked to? Maybe she got her coffee every morning at that coffee shop I passed by on the Boardwalk?

No, that didn't feel right, either.

Maybe —

"Do you want something?"

I blinked and realized the girl had turned to look at me, and almost on reflex, I glanced around to see if there was anyone else she might be talking to. When I looked straight back at her, she gave me a short, terse nod.

"Yeah, you," she said, scowling. "I said, do you want something?"

"A-ah, no," I stuttered, my cheeks hot, "I just, uh…thought…"

"What, exactly? That I'd pose for a picture with you or something?"

"N-no," I said, a little indignantly. "I just thought I…recognized you, and I was wondering —"

"Right," she snorted condescendingly. "Sure. Sorry, but no, I don't do cosmetic stuff. If you want bigger boobs or whatever, grow 'em yourself or go see a plastic surgeon."

My first instinct was to shy away — it was what I tended to do at Winslow — but this was not Winslow and this girl was not Emma, who would escalate and lob precision strikes at me with all the secrets I'd told her over the years. Instead, I scowled right back and straightened my spine.

"Listen," I told her, "I don't know _who_ you are, I just thought you looked familiar. That's all. I'm sorry for staring, but I was just trying to figure out how I knew you. You don't have to be such a bitch about it."

For a long moment, she just stared at me, like she was trying to catch me out in a lie, then her lips thinned and her brow furrowed.

"You're serious," she said, sounding skeptical. "You actually… You _really_ don't recognize me?"

"No, I don't. Should I?"

The girl tilted her head to the side a little, eyes narrowing in confusion. "I mean, I normally have the whole robe and scarf thing going on," she admitted, "so I guess my face isn't… You…really don't recognize me?"

Hood and scarf… Had no secret identity, apparently… Someone from New Wave? I hadn't really focused quite as much on studying the heroes after I got my powers, but I _did_ recall, vaguely, a few things about the members of New Wave. Not much, but I could remember what was basically a family photo — a middle-aged woman, the mother, a middle-aged man, the father, a blond girl about my age in white with a tiara (Glory Girl, who was something of a local celebrity), and another girl in a white robe with a scarf wrapped around her lower face, who spent nowhere near as much time in the limelight.

So…this was the other girl, then? What was her name? I couldn't remember, but it felt like it was on the tip of my tongue. P-something. Maybe D or T-something. I was pretty sure it was Greek.

"Not really, no," I said, shrugging.

"Huh," the girl mumbled, nonplussed. "I…huh."

For a moment, she just sat there, looking at me with something like amazement, like she was so used to being recognized that she didn't quite know what to do when she wasn't. Then, she seemed to come to a decision, and she got up, moved down to the chair next to me, and stuck out her hand. I was reminded, for just a split second, of Tattletale offering her hand to me, too.

"My name is Amy," the girl introduced herself. Very conspicuously, I noticed she didn't give me her last name.

I took her hand with mine. "Taylor."

"Taylor, huh? Nice to — what the hell?"

Amy went cross-eyed, then looked faintly dizzy as she pulled her hand away from mine to press it against one of her temples. She closed her eyes, grimacing, and had to blink several times before she could look at me straight again. I had no idea what was happening.

"How are you even physically _possible_?" she hissed, leaning in.

I blinked, confused.

"I…what?"

"Your muscles!" she whispered furiously. "Your bones, your neural pathways, your cardiovascular system! It's… It's all… denser, faster, more resilient than it should be! Hell, how do you not eat an entire fucking _cow_ every day just to keep it all working like that?"

"I'm…not sure…" I honestly had no real idea. I'd thought, before, that maybe I was taking on some of the traits of the heroes I Installed the more I Installed them, their superhuman strength and stamina, but I'd always considered that more of a fantasy than an actual possibility.

Maybe it had something to do with Aife's martial arts, instead? Not that that made much more sense, really. Sure, some of the things I'd be learning later would probably be pretty bullshit, and I had no idea how those were going to work in the real world that had to obey things like physics, but I hadn't gotten to anything particularly out there, yet. Most of the feats I'd learned were basically exercises to improve physical conditioning, and I hadn't noticed the kind of increase in muscle tone that Amy was talking about.

Evidently, admitting ignorance wasn't the answer Amy was looking for, because she frowned, and with a determined set to her face, she reached over again and grabbed my hand kind of roughly.

For a long, awkward moment, she kept hold of my hand, the furrow of her brow growing increasingly deep as her eyes began to narrow in what I could only imagine was concentration. Her lips became thinner and whiter as the line of her mouth drew out, and a hint of red began to seep into her cheeks and around her nose, drowning out her freckles.

Finally, she pulled away, making a frustrated sound in her throat as she rubbed at her temple again.

"What the fuck," she hissed.

"I'm…sorry?" I said cluelessly. I honestly had no idea what to do.

"You don't make any sense," she breathed quietly. "There are parts of you I can't even fucking _see_ , like I'm looking through foggy glass, only for my powers. It's giving me a headache just to _try_. Just…how do you even…"

"Is… that a bad thing?"

Amy stared at me for a moment, like she didn't even know what to do with a question like that, then shook her head a little. She took a deep breath, let out an explosive sigh, and offered me what might be charitably called an exasperated grin.

"When I figure that out, I'll let you know," she told me wryly. "You'll be the second person."

Second?

"Who'll be the first?"

"The editor of the American Journal of Medicine."

"I…" What do you say to _that_? "What?"

Amy looked at me again for another moment, then, slowly, she said, "That was a joke."

"O-oh."

Great going, there, Taylor.

We lapsed into an awkward silence to the background hum of several dozen voices speaking lowly. Neither of us really seemed to know where to go from there, and I could hear the chime of a clock announcing that it had turned twelve noon somewhere above my head.

"So," Amy began at length, breaking that silence, "um… What… What brings you to the bank today?"

I…didn't think she really meant to ask a question that lame and silly, because what do you do in a bank besides exchange money? It was enough of an opening, however, that I took it for what it was and ran with it.

"I'm…making a bit of a big deposit," I said a little cryptically. I clutched my backpack a little more tightly. "Didn't… Didn't want to leave it sitting around the house, you know?"

She gave me a strange look. "A big deposit?"

"A gift from a friend of mine," I clarified. "She…said she had some luck at a casino, so she gave me some of her winnings."

 _Yes, of course, why not just blab to everyone that Lisa robbed the Ruby Dreams like Robin Hood?_

If I was going to do this whole secret identity thing, maybe I should pick up some kind of lying skill with Aife, so that I didn't out myself or Lisa every time I had to talk about something one of us did as capes.

"How much did she give you?" Amy asked curiously.

"Two thousand," I answered before I could think about it.

Amy looked thrown, for a moment, and I realized I'd just done it _again_. Fuck, I was a horrible liar.

"Huh. Must be a pretty good friend."

"Um, yeah." I remembered yesterday and Monday, eating ice cream with Lisa, sipping tea and quietly sharing our traumas. That validation, that relief, she'd given me in the wake of the Sophia mess. I found myself smiling a little. "Yeah, she's a great friend."

I had no idea what things would have been like if I hadn't met Lisa, where I would've gone if she hadn't been there to help me deal with the aftermath of Tuesday. If she hadn't been there to teach me about the Unwritten Rules. If I just… had to be alone, both as a cape and as a normal girl.

How had I grown to depend on her in just a few short days? I had no idea. I was just glad I could.

Amy gave me a strange look, a slight furrowing of her eyebrows and a curious upturn of her lips. "Are you…?"

"Am I what?"

She shook her head. "Nevermind."

I thought about asking again, but I decided against it. It was probably something really awkward and embarrassing, and that was why she'd stopped herself.

"So," I said instead, "what are you doing here, then? Putting away some cash, too?"

"Actually," Amy began, "I'm —"

A shrill, feminine scream cut her off, and as she and I looked back towards the far end of the bank, an oily black fog burst out from the back offices faster than any fog had the right to. It enveloped us before I could even think to do more than close my eyes and scream, but even as I did, it came out warped and strange and not nearly as loud as it should have been.

I heard Amy's surprised scream, too, from right next to me, but it sounded different, as well. Like I was hearing it from across a football field or from down a long tunnel, it was quieter than it should have been and it had a strange, almost warbling quality to it that was difficult to explain. It was almost like someone had shoved cotton into my ears. Everything was muted.

It took me a moment to realize I had opened my eyes, because all I saw was an empty black. I could still feel the floor beneath my feet and the chair I was sitting in, and as I reached out blindly, searching, my hand found Amy's, as well, but I couldn't see anything at all. For one, wild moment, I was afraid I'd suddenly gone blind.

Several minutes passed like that, and I sat in my spot, rooted to my chair, unsure of what to do. After I'd had a moment to calm down a little, it was obvious this was some kind of villain attack, that someone was…what, robbing the bank or something? It was a cliche, but cliches existed for a reason. So, yes, someone seemed to be robbing the bank.

I… I probably should have transformed and gotten ready to fight them, but a couple of things stopped me. First, the hostages. An Install like Siegfried had wrecked an entire street (albeit, with help from Lung and his fire, but still), and pulling out something like that in the middle of a crowded bank seemed like a bad idea.

Second, I would effectively be outing myself. Granted, Amy probably already knew, or at least suspected, because apparently, even as a normal human, I wasn't a normal human, anymore. Anyone else, though? The other people in the bank? At least one or two would connect the dots, would connect the disappearance of the girl with long, curly dark hair and the appearance of a hero with the same hair, and I didn't think the Unwritten Rules would bind normal humans when they didn't even bind _capes_ all the time.

Thirdly, and really most importantly, I was blind. I couldn't see anything, let alone see it well enough to fight. There were probably a few heroes who could fight in these conditions, but even among them, I didn't want to risk it when one wrong move could mean killing an innocent bystander.

So, I did the only thing I really could. I sat there, glued to my chair, listening helplessly as people's muted screams and whimpers echoed throughout the cloying darkness. I didn't hear any bodies hitting the floor or anything, so I hoped that meant no one was getting hurt, but I felt helpless, not knowing what was happening and not being able to do anything about it.

Finally, at last, the black fog vanished, and I blinked as the light and sound returned. In the interim, it seemed like everyone in the bank had been gathered out onto the center floor, probably so that no one could set off the alarms, and a few of what looked to be bank employees had had their hands ziptied in front of them.

"Good afternoon, Brockton Bay Central Bank!" a familiar voice called. I felt my chest go cold. "If I could have a moment of your time, that'd be great — yes, that's right, up here."

I turned to look at the tellers' desks, where a group of people and three large monsters stood.

"Fifteen minutes is all we'll be needing, as long as no one tries to do anything particularly heroic and stupid. Stay put, stay quiet, and we'll be out of your hair before you even know it."

One of the people was a tall, muscular man in black motorcycle leathers. The fog that had coated the room floated off of him, seeping through every seam and gap and rolling off of his body. He cut an intimidating figure.

The second guy was shorter and skinnier, dressed in a white blouse and black tights, masked by a white theatre mask and topped with a coronet. He held a golden scepter in one hand, twirling it lazily. He looked vaguely out of place next to the other man, but what made him intimidating was the sheer and utter boredom that seemed etched into every line of his body, like this was something he had to do and it would normally be beneath his notice.

The third person was recognizable as a girl only because of her chest and her clothing, and aside from the cheap, plastic dog mask on her face, she didn't seem to have made any more attempts to hide her identity. The big, car-sized monsters seemed to be hers, because her hand was resting on the flank of one of them while the others prowled in the background.

And standing at the front, with long blond hair, bright green eyes, a domino mask, and skintight black-and-purple spandex…

"Just fifteen minutes, then you can all go about your day like normal. Give your witness statements to the police. Hug your kids. No muss, no fuss, no one needs to get hurt. Okay?"

My stomach plummeted. The bottom of my world fell away, and with it, it took all of the things I thought I knew and trusted.

Standing at the front was Tattletale.

Lisa.

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

 **I predict that the next couple of chapters are going to be a bit divisive. I'll probably have a few of my detractors go, "Of _course_ he did the bank job," with maybe a few derogatory statements made about my skill as a writer. I will say: this is one of those moments I wanted to juxtapose with canon. You _will_ get to hear Lisa's reasoning, some next chapter and some in early arc 4, and the ironic thing is that Lisa wasn't even going to _do_ the bank job until that conversation with Taylor in 3.2.**

 **Also, there are some very natural changes to your body when you learn a martial art that has been dead for over a thousand years, used in a time when humans could do things like lob boulders uphill. Taylor's changes are surprisingly tame.**

 **As always, read, review, and enjoy.**

 **And for early access to chapters and bonus content:**

 **p a treon . com (slash) James_D_Fawkes**


	21. Trust 3-4

**Trust 3.4**

I was frozen. I couldn't move. I was barely breathing.

"This isn't _Die Hard_ ," Tattletale was saying. "Alan Rickman isn't gonna fall out of the window at the end. If you try to be a hero, someone's gonna get hurt, and no one here wants that. So don't. Just don't. We're not here to hurt anybody, and all the money in the vault is insured anyway. You won't lose anything other than a few minutes of your time. Trust me, trying to play the hero here? Really not worth it."

I wasn't even seeing the others, anymore. The tall, dark figure that stood at one side, billowing black fog from every crack and crevice in his costume, the stocky girl with her prowling monsters standing at the other, the crowned visage of royalty behind the rest of them — they'd become part of the background. My eyes were fixed on Tattletale.

"That means you, too," she added, pointing suddenly to someone in the crowd. I couldn't even turn to follow her finger. "That taser you've got hidden in your coat pocket? Forget about it. I _guarantee_ you that it won't do you any good. You don't even have enough charges in that thing to get more than one of us, anyway."

My heart was thudding in my chest. The world swam around me, swirling dizzily until my head spun. My stomach squirmed and tied itself into knots of _anger_ , _pain_ , _betrayal_ , and _despair_. I didn't even notice myself squeezing Amy's hand tightly in my own, probably too tightly, and the pained hiss she let out as she tried to wiggle out of my grip didn't even register.

Everything was focused on Tattletale — on Lisa, the girl who had _lied_ to me from the very first moment we met. The girl who had had me convinced that she was my friend, who I had shared tea with, who I had shared my deepest traumas with, who I had told the story of Emma and her betrayal. The girl who had been feeding me lies and falsehoods and stringing me along all the while, letting me think she was some tragic, misunderstood hero trying to make the best of her situation.

My throat was tight. I couldn't swallow, because it felt like there was a giant lump lodged halfway down. My eyes burned.

 _Traitor_ , something inside of me seethed. _Liar. Deceiver._

Why? I wanted to know. Why? Why had she done this to me? Why had she told me, let me believe, that she was an independent hero trying to scrape by, if she was just going to do this? Why had she pretended to be my friend, bought me tea, comforted me in the wake of the Sophia mess, taught me about the Unwritten Rules — why had she helped me, shown me kindness, if it was just going to end in this?

Had this been her plan from the beginning? The rest of it, all of it, had it all been a bunch of nicely packed lies, while she laughed to herself about how gullible I was? Had she done all of this just so she could see the look on my face when I finally realized how badly I'd been duped? That story about her Trigger Event, had it even been real, or just a sob story she thought would feel real enough to make me trust her?

I wanted to shout. I wanted to scream. I wanted to demand an answer and shake it out of her if I had to, but my lungs were frozen and my mouth felt like it had been glued shut.

"Taylor," I vaguely heard Amy murmur. "Taylor, you need to calm down. You're hyperventilating."

I couldn't answer her. My tongue was just as frozen as my lungs, and every muscle in my body had seized. It was like I had become a statue, staring unblinkingly ahead at the girl who had just _torn my heart from my chest_.

"Taylor," Amy said again, "you _need_ to calm down. You're gonna pass out, if you don't, and _I can't help you_ , because I _can't see you clearly_ , remember?"

"Just to make sure that everyone plays nice, Regent here will be keeping an eye on everyone." Tattletale gestured to the boy in the blouse and tights, with the coronet and porcelain mask. "The rest of us have business elsewhere."

Two of the dogs and the ren-faire guy peeled off and made their way to the front steps, just by the door. I could only watch as Tattletale and the two others, plus one dog, made their way towards the back and the vault. A few moments later, they disappeared around a corner, their footsteps clacking off of the marble tiles.

It was only once they were gone that I managed to loosen up at all. The tension in every part of my body eased, not because I was relaxing, but because I couldn't hold it all in anymore. The breath left my lungs as an explosive sigh mixed in with what might have been a sob, and I felt the pair of tears that had been hovering at the corners of my eyes finally fall.

"Are you okay?" Amy whispered.

"I… I…"

No, I wasn't. Not at all. I was nowhere even _near_ okay. But how did I explain everything to this girl I had just met? How did I tell her exactly what had just happened, exactly how I knew Tattletale, and exactly why I was so upset to see her? How did I tell her all of that here, in the middle of a bank, while it was being robbed? How did I explain the situation, the betrayal, the anguish that was still churning inside of me, even then?

The irony that I had done much the same with Lisa did not escape me.

I felt my lower lip wobble, and I bit it to try and center myself in the storm of emotion that was raging inside of me. I would _not_ cry. I _refused_ to cry. I wouldn't give Emma — _Lisa_. I wouldn't give _Lisa_ that satisfaction. Not now, not ever again.

It felt like an eternity had passed before Tattletale returned back onto the main floor, missing her two teammates.

"Well," she said, "while Grue and Bitch are loading up, I happen to have some business to take care of in the back, and I think I'm in need of an assistant."

A wave of tension swept through the rest of the people in the bank, and several of the other hostages flinched back as Tattletale lifted her hand, finger extended, and swung it around the room. Everyone in its path recoiled, like watching a wave ripple across them. That trademark grin still stretched her mouth from ear to ear.

I was only a little surprised when it landed on me.

"You," she declared. "I think you'll do just fine."

I didn't move. The pointed finger turned around as she twisted her wrist and made a "come hither" motion.

"Come on. We don't have all day, after all."

I felt Amy grip my hand tightly.

"I-I'll go!" someone said suddenly. A man in a business suit started to stand up from his seat on the floor. "I'll go with you! Take me instead!"

He took a step forward, but quick as a whip, Tattletale had reached for her utility belt and snapped out a pistol.

"Up-up-up!" she said. "Remember what I said before. No playing the hero. I didn't ask for _you_ , I asked for _her_." She gestured with the gun. "So, just sit on back down and chill. I said that we didn't come here to hurt anyone, and I meant it. As long as everyone cooperates, we'll all walk out of here without so much as a bruise."

After a moment, the man sat back down, head hung. I could see the sweat dripping down the side of his head.

"Good." As soon as he had, the gun turned in my direction. "Now, you and I have a _date_ , Tall Girl. We don't want to be late."

My heart skipped a beat. The strangeness of the wording… A _date_? Here, now, she was going to make that reference?

Was… Was she _mocking_ me?

She gestured with the gun again. "Come on. Clock's ticking, Tall Girl."

I started to stand. I'd moved past hurt and into angry. I was half tempted to go over there and clock her in the face, everything else be damned. Amy's hand holding me back, squeezing as though to keep me from going, was probably the only thing that gave me enough thinking space to stop myself.

"Don't worry so much," said Tattletale, looking past me and at Amy. "We'll have your girlfriend back before you know it. Promise."

It was another long moment before Amy finally let my hand go.

I walked up to Lisa slowly, methodically, each step plodding and heavy. My pulse roared in my ears the entire way, and it seemed to get louder the closer I got, until I was standing right next to her. I could have reached out and disarmed her in an instant.

Tattletale took a step back and gestured down the hall with her pistol.

"Go on," she said. "We need to make use of one of the offices in the back. You get to go first."

For another moment, I stared at her, met those bright green eyes, looking for… what, I wasn't sure. Recognition, maybe? Mirth? Sadism? Some sign that she was enjoying the merry hell she was playing on my thoughts and my emotions? But up close, all I could see was that her grin didn't quite reach her eyes, and what that meant, I couldn't even begin to imagine.

I turned away from her and towards the offices in the back, but didn't move. Something prodded me in the back a few seconds later — a finger or the barrel of that pistol, I had no idea.

"March."

I started off down the hall, still that same slow, plodding walk, and I heard Tattletale's footsteps following behind me as I went. We walked past the tellers' desks, around the corner, then down the hallway she and her group had come in through, and I had no idea what she was looking for or which office she wanted to choose or what she was going to do when we got there. Gloat? Explain her evil plan? Tell me how stupid I was to trust her? Anything I thought I knew about her was probably wrong.

"This'll do," she said as we came to one of the last offices in the hallway. "Go on. Get in."

I hesitated for all of a second, then stepped inside the office and turned to face her. She was still pointing her pistol in my direction, and I had a moment where I regretted leaving that project unfinished in my room.

"Stay there," she ordered, waving the pistol at the chair in front of the desk in the middle of the room.

Slowly, I moved to the spot she'd pointed at, smack dab in the center of the room. I watched her, still mostly angry but starting to get very confused.

Tattletale closed the door behind her, turned back to me, and offered me a smile — a real, genuine smile, one that felt a lot more earnest than that Cheshire grin.

I had no fucking clue what was going on.

"What —" I began.

"Hold on a sec," she told me. She set the gun down on the desk, just out of casual reach, and pulled a second chair towards the corner of the room — where, I could see, there was a security camera overlooking the office. She stood up on the chair and tugged one of the wires loose, and I watched as the glaring red light on the camera winked out.

When she was done, she stepped back down, strode around the desk, came up to me, and she pulled me into a tight hug. I was so shocked I didn't even have the capacity to think about whether I should hug her back or wring her neck.

"You came," she breathed into my ear. "Holy fuck, you actually _came_."

What?

Just…what? Was this another manipulation tactic, another game of hers, another way of messing with me, or… Fuck, did she actually mean it? Was she really, actually glad to see me? For whatever reason?

I… I really had no idea what was happening, here. What was going on. It felt like everyone was acting out a script that I hadn't been given the lines to, and I was left floundering, trying to figure out whether this was _Romeo and Juliet_ or fucking _Hamlet_.

Just… I… What?

She pulled back away from me, looking up into my face, and cringed.

"Ah, right," she said ruefully. "Yeah. Explanation time, I guess."

"I…" I struggled to form a coherent sentence. "Yeah. That would be…"

"Nice" wasn't a good word. It had too many positive connotations to fit my mindset, right then — halfway between utterly baffled and nail-spitting furious — but I didn't have the capacity to string together a word larger than two syllables, at that moment.

"Gimme a sec, here, and I'll explain everything."

Tattletale didn't wait for my response; she briskly strode back around the desk and wiggled the mouse to bring the computer sitting there out of standby mode. After another few seconds of glancing around at the keyboard, at the desk itself, and rooting through the drawers, she set her fingers down on the keyboard and started typing.

"So, by now, you've probably figured out that the Undersiders — that's my team, by the way — aren't exactly the independent hero type," she began.

"That's…"

 _No shit._

No, Lisa, I hadn't figured that out, _thank you for telling me_.

She glanced at me for a moment, winced, then went back to whatever it was she was doing on that computer. Looking through financial records? Draining bank accounts? Pulling up blackmail material? Hell if I knew, because obviously, whatever I thought I'd known about Lisa was wrong.

"Right, yeah, kind of obvious, huh?" she went on. "Yeah. Sorry. We're…kind of a villain team. Kind of. Most of the jobs we've done _have_ been against other villains. Snatch and grab heists. Get in, grab some of their money, maybe take a few souvenirs, then skedaddle before Lung or Hookwolf or the Protectorate shows up. Petty thieves, when it comes down to it."

"Why…?"

 _Why did you let me believe you were a hero, then? Why construct this whole charade, why try and be my friend?_

Those questions screamed inside of me, and I wanted to shout them in her face, demand an answer to them. She kept going before I could even try.

"Because I _am_ your friend," Lisa told me simply, like it was an obvious fact. Something in my chest ached. "But, yeah, nothing I said that first night was technically _false_ , but the way I said it was a bit deceptive. Sorry. I really am. But you wouldn't have talked to me at all if I'd told you the truth right then and there, so I had to fib a little to keep you from bolting."

That was…

No, it wasn't necessarily untrue. I _wouldn't_ have stayed if she'd said she was a villain outright. I might even have fought her, and probably have lost, considering how tired I'd been in the aftermath of Lung.

That didn't make it any better, though. The lie was still a lie.

"Yeah, that's fair," Lisa admitted, as though I'd said all of that out loud. "I still let you believe I was a hero, and maybe that was wrong, and maybe in a better world, I'd give more of a damn about more than the fact that it's obviously hurt you, but it's not. This is a crazy, fucked up world, and sometimes, the only way to survive is to do some stuff you don't really want to."

She looked up and met my eyes, and for a moment, she stopped everything else she was doing.

"But I didn't lie about anything else," she told me sincerely. "Everything else we talked about? All the stuff I told you? About my…my brother? That was all true. I meant every word."

I hated the pang of sympathy that curled in my gut, just then. I wanted to keep being angry, to find excuses to make her out as some kind of monster, so that I could justify hating her and wash my hands of everything. I wanted to pretend that she had never cared, that it had all been one big game, so that I could have every reason in the world to want nothing else to do with her.

I could do angry. I could do loathing. I could do hate. I'd been doing them for almost two years, and I'd gotten used to those sorts of feelings. It would have been so much easier to deal with Lisa if I could just paint her with the same brush as Emma and be done with it.

But I was finding that I couldn't. Not that I wasn't still angry and confused, not that I didn't want more, better answers, but I couldn't just throw aside that beautiful, burgeoning friendship that had been kindling inside me for the past few days. I just couldn't.

I still wanted to know, though.

"Why?"

There were probably better ways she could have done it, if all she really wanted was a friend. I still didn't quite know what Lisa's power was, but she'd as good as admitted it was a Thinker power, yesterday, when she was telling me about her Trigger Event. There was no way she couldn't have found me in my civilian identity as plain, ordinary Taylor Hebert and struck up a friendship that way.

So why hadn't she? Why hadn't she skipped this whole thing and made friends that way?

Tattletale stopped typing, but she didn't look back up.

"Why, huh?" she asked under her breath. She sighed, then she lifted her eyes to meet mine. "Do you remember what I said that first night? About how some capes are forced into a gang? Told either to join or get buried in a shallow, unmarked grave?"

A thrill of icy cold shot through my stomach. She could have stopped there, and I would have been able to fill in most of the rest myself.

"After I left my parents and made my way up here, I was living on the streets," she went on. "I supported myself by using my power to pickpocket the kinds of people who could afford to lose a few hundred bucks, here and there — you know, rich, snobby types with six-figure salaries and a whole closet full of pricey suits. The kind of guys who buy Rolexes straight-up instead of cheap, knock-off brands. The kind of guys my parents were, if we're being totally honest."

She glanced down, frowning.

"I'm still not quite sure how he found me. I wasn't making waves. I wasn't gaming the stock market or draining bank accounts dry. I was just getting by. Then, a couple of goons dressed up as enforcers pulled me aside on the Boardwalk one day and handed me a phone, told me I had a call. The guy on the other line gave me a choice: I could either work for him, or take a one-way trip to the morgue."

Some of the anger was starting to come back, but it wasn't all aimed at Lisa. It occurred to me, then and there, that this could still be part of her game, that this was all a lie carefully concocted to garner my sympathy, but I wanted to believe her. God only knew why, but I wanted her to be telling the truth, that the last few days hadn't been one big, giant scam.

"Who?" I asked a little harshly.

"He calls himself Coil," Lisa told me. "Bond-type villain. Megalomaniac with dreams of conquering the world or whatever. After he slipped the leash around my neck, he scrounged together this team: me, Grue — the darkness guy — Bitch — the girl with dogs — and Regent — the renaissance faire reject. He gives each of them something they want, pays us to do jobs, and has some master plan that we figure into, although I'm not sure how, just yet."

"Even with your power?"

Lisa chuckled wryly. "Bond villain," she repeated. "Paranoid as all fuck. Decoys, body doubles, voice modulators, scripted speeches and responses, the whole shebang. Plus, as much as I like to tell people I am, I'm not actually psychic. My power gets less accurate the less data I have, and guys like Coil would come up with a dozen different ways to spoof it before ever saying a single word to me."

Oh. Yeah, that would make sense, wouldn't it?

"But… Still. Why…?"

None of this answered the question of why she hadn't just befriended me outside of the costume.

Tattletale closed her eyes and let out a breath through her nose.

"Because I wanted your help," she admitted at last. "Because I had no way of getting out from under his thumb, even _if_ I could convince the rest of my team to help me out, until _you_ came along."

Me?

"Me?"

"Yeah, you." She smiled sardonically. "You're Eidolon Lite. You have a dozen different ways you could really screw up his day, and that's _before_ considering that apparently your power really messes with his."

So, she really _had_ been using me from the start, hadn't she?

Lisa's face twisted into a scowl. "Damn it, _no_. Look, I'd like your help, I'd love it, actually, and I'll pay you, I'll beg you, I'll do whatever you want, if it means you'll get me out from under him, but if you say no, I'll still be your friend, okay?"

No, it really wasn't.

She sighed tiredly and leaned back into the chair.

"Besides," she added, "if you're going to keep being a hero, you can't avoid dealing with him, eventually."

My left hand curled into a fist.

She was right, after a fashion. If I was going to keep being a hero and Coil was a villain, it would probably only be a matter of time until we clashed in some form or another. That still didn't mean…

"Let me clarify things, a little," Lisa said. "At the very least, Coil wants control of the city. Where he goes after that, fuck if I know. He's got his fingers in the PRT. He's funding at least two villain teams. If he _does_ get control of the city, any hero or villain who doesn't work for him in some way or fashion will end up either floating face down in the Bay or driven out of town. _Your power messes with his power_. It's only a matter of time before he tries to put a bullet either through your skull or into your heart."

She looked me straight in the eye.

"And if he can't get to you, he'll go after the nearest available target that will get you to do what he wants. Family, friends, lover — _whoever it takes_."

My chest went cold.

Dad.

I knew what she was doing. Whether or not this was all the truth, it was all in the telling. She was doing her level best to make Coil into a problem that would become my problem no matter what, box me in so that I could only say yes. Whether she really _would_ stay my friend, even if I said no, I couldn't be sure, because someone like Lisa would have a better poker face than me, but it was easy to imagine that it was another way of hooking me.

That didn't mean it wasn't working.

I _wanted_ to believe her. I wanted it _so badly_. She was the first friend I'd made in two years, the first girl my age I'd been able to speak more than two words to that didn't involve either of us slinging insults at each other. She'd given me kind words, an understanding shoulder, and an ear to bend. She'd reached out her hand and brushed away my loneliness, and in only a handful of days, she'd wormed her way deep into my heart.

But she'd done all of that with this hanging over her head and hidden behind her smile. She'd done all of that with the intent to one day ask me to pay it forward. From the beginning, she'd known she was going to ask me for this.

I wanted to trust her, but how could I trust her? I wanted to be her friend, but how could I be a friend to a girl I couldn't trust? I'd already opened my heart to her; knowing that she held a knife, now, how could I be sure she wouldn't stab it?

I looked down at my hand, furling and uncurling my fingers.

That was the problem: I couldn't. I'd extended my trust to her, and now she'd shattered it. Maybe, if I was a different kind of person, I could have just forgiven her, maybe not right then but eventually, but I'd been betrayed already. I'd lived with those consequences already. I'd felt that pain too keenly already. Forgiveness was not a thing I knew how to give.

But…

Even if I didn't know how to forgive, anymore, there were ways around that. That was really, in the end, what I'd spent the last few months doing, after all: finding ways around my weaknesses, finding ways to protect my blind spots, so that no one could exploit them and use them against me.

"I could agree to help you," I said slowly. I looked up to meet her eyes. "But you'd have to make me a promise."

"Whatever it is, consider it made," she replied immediately.

And one of the things I'd discovered in the Irish myths, when I was studying Aífe and Cúchulainn, was that the ancient Celts had had ways of making oaths stick. They'd had ways of ensuring that a king acted kingly, that a great warrior never betrayed his principles, that deals made were always kept. They'd bound themselves and each other, and those who betrayed those bonds suffered great misfortune.

I stepped forward and held out my hand. Vaguely, I was aware that this whole thing had started with her on the other side and me refusing to take it.

"I promise to help you escape Coil, if you promise to never betray my trust again."

"Done." She reached out to grab my hand. "I prom — oh."

She stopped halfway, looked down at my hand. Part of my costume had materialized, just the underlayer, so that smooth, skin-tight black cloth covered my hand, stretched up my arm, across my shoulders, and wrapped around my chest. With my hoodie on, it was practically invisible, but I wasn't surprised that Lisa had noticed.

That was how Cúchulainn had died, after all. Through trickery after trickery, he'd been forced to break his oaths, and with each one he broke, he became weaker and weaker, until at last, he was too weak to avoid the blow that killed him.

"Oh," she said again softly. "Oh, shit. You… You're really serious about this, aren't you?"

I didn't smile. I didn't nod. I didn't change my expression at all. There were only two ways this scenario could end — in one, we'd part ways and be enemies, and I would curse her with everything I was. In the other, we'd remain friends, and maybe one day, I could let go of the anger and the hatred that was still simmering in my gut, and we could recapture the feeling of those first few days.

An oath that neither of us could betray… A promise that neither of us could casually break…

"Do you promise?"

For what it was worth, Lisa barely hesitated. It was less than a second of thought and consideration, less than a second of doubt. Then, she reached out and grasped my gloved hand with hers.

"I promise."

The geis snapped into action, shooting up from our joined hands like a crackle of electricity and winding its way around my heart and hers. From this point forward, neither of us could betray that oath. We were bound together, now, closer than lovers, by a vow more lasting and stronger than death do us part.

 _Anmain a n-anmain. Luige a n-luige. Immalle, sní téit co ar úag._

"Life for life. Oath for oath. Together, we go to our grave."

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

 **Like I said, probably a bit divisive.**

 **Don't think that this is where it ends, though. There will be _consequences_ to what Lisa has done, this arc. Even if they seem like they're mended, pay close attention to some of the things Taylor says in the aftermath of this whole thing. It's going to be quite a while before she's willing to earnestly put her trust in Lisa again.**

 **As always, read, review, and enjoy.**

 **And for early access to chapters and bonus content:**

 **p a treon . com (slash) James_D_Fawkes**


	22. Trust 3-5

**Trust 3.5**

The moment stretched interminably. Those solemn words lent a certain finality to the whole situation, an air of certainty. They were a promise and a curse in equal measure, an unbreakable bond that could not be strained by time or distance, an unalterable truth that could not be cast off or ignored.

That was what I'd wanted, after all. A simple vow, a promise without this weight, was worth about as much as the air wasted to say it. The only thing that gave something like that value was trust, and right now, I could not trust Lisa. I couldn't trust that she was being entirely honest, that she wasn't trying to pull the wool over my eyes.

I still wasn't sure if the past few days had ever been real, if Lisa really had been my friend, or if it had all been a ruse. I wanted to believe it. I wanted to believe that it hadn't all been a lie, that my first friend in nearly two years hadn't been using me and playing me like a cheap violin. I wanted to trust her.

But I couldn't.

Like with a lot of things, the myths I'd been researching had an answer for that. If I couldn't trust her on my own, if I couldn't trust that she'd been telling the truth about everything, then I could bind her to an oath that made her trustworthy. In exchange for that trust and the vow to keep it, I would help her to escape from the supervillain who had recruited her at gunpoint, Coil.

On that particular subject, at least, she'd been telling the truth. A geis could not bind itself on a lie — I could not save her from Coil unless she was indeed in need of saving. Since the geis had settled and wound itself around my heart, that part must be true after all. So — even if it was only for that one part — she'd been telling me the truth.

The rest of it, I'd figure out later.

An empty office in the middle of a bank robbery wasn't exactly the best place to be having an argument with your…with your best friend.

God, I hated her for that.

God, why did I still love her for it?

After an eternity, I let go of her hand, and almost hesitantly, hers returned to her side. She was looking at me, something strange in her green eyes, and it seemed like there was something she wanted to ask me. Maybe about how the geis had actually worked. Maybe about whether or not I was okay.

(I wasn't.)

Either way, she didn't get the chance. At that moment —

 _CRASH_

A great noise cut through the air, and Lisa and I both startled and looked to the door. Whatever it was had come from outside, but it sounded like someone had just dropped a heavy wooden table off the roof of a skyscraper.

"What — ?"

"Shit," Lisa hissed. I looked back at her to find she'd turned her attention to the computer again. The keys clacked under her fingers as she typed rapidfire, moving like one of those hackers from the movies. Somehow, it looked more frantic and less graceful in real life. "Fuck. I thought I had more time."

There was another crash, followed by a meaty thud, and then what would have been a furious bark — if it had come from King Kong, that was. There was no way a dog had vocal cords deep enough to make a bark like that.

"Lisa," I started again, "what — ?"

"Fuck," she said again, ignoring me. I watched her bite her bottom lip, and her eyes raced back and forth almost manically. "Fuck, fuck, fuck."

She stopped and closed her eyes, pressing one hand to her forehead, then let out an abrupt sigh through her nostrils. Her hand came back down and she gave a few rapid shakes of her head.

"Damnit." She opened her eyes and looked back to the computer screen. "Guess this'll just have to do."

She started to type again, then suddenly stopped and reached back to yank the power cord out. The hum of the fan that I hadn't even noticed before cut out.

"The Wards are here," she said by way of explanation. "I thought we'd have at least five more minutes than this, but I guess I must've made a mistake somewhere."

She said the last bit sourly, like she didn't want to admit it, and then she was walking briskly around the desk and to the door — she snatched up the pistol she'd been carrying almost as an afterthought.

As she reached for the doorknob, she glanced back at me and told me, "You might want to stay here."

Then, she wrenched the door open and was gone. I was standing there, alone, for barely a second before I felt the tug on the inside of my chest — of course, I thought, and I started after her. She'd said Coil had men or spies in the PRT, influence of some kind, at least; if she got caught, if I _let_ her get caught, I'd be breaking my vow less than ten minutes after making it.

Geis or no geis, angry or not, I didn't have it in me to let that happen.

I managed to catch up with her before she'd even made it all the way down the hallway, and she didn't say anything as I came up behind her. Instead, she just kept running, and I couldn't see her face to tell anything about what she thought about that. Like that, we raced towards the bank's main concourse, where I could hear a great commotion — those barks from before, the meaty thumps of something large and living racing across the marble floors, voices shouting and people screaming.

It sounded like a battle.

I didn't have any idea what I was going to do. My vow made it so that I couldn't let Lisa get captured, but would that mean that I had to fight the Wards? Would that mean I had to transform and use my powers to help her escape?

A part of me, the part of me that was still angry about Sophia, wanted to. I didn't listen to it and I knew the consequences of it would go against everything I'd managed to accomplish by taking down Lung, but even still, that tiny part of me burned eagerly.

As Lisa rounded the corner, with me just behind her, I saw it. Not the whole thing, at first. My brain hadn't fully registered everything. It was just the movement I saw first, and then immediately afterwards, I recognized the bright red of a fire extinguisher, heading towards Lisa's face from the side.

She didn't even see it coming.

My body acted before I had any time to think about what I was doing. There was no consideration about who was on the other end, no weighing of the consequences, no judging about whether or not it was something I should do. All I knew was that someone was swinging a fire extinguisher at my friend's face; everything else was for later.

My arm came up on its own, slapping the extinguisher off course and to the side — my knuckles erupted with pain, but I paid it no mind. My other hand reached out and grabbed the wrist of the person holding it — slim, feminine, in the back of my head, I recognized the other person as a girl — then I was twisting, forcing her to drop it as she let out a pained squeal. The fire extinguisher fell and hit the ground with a thunderous clang; it just barely missed my left foot.

I wasn't done, though. The ancient Celtic martial arts _did_ have a submission hold or two, but mostly not, because their techniques were designed for _killing_. What I did next was a bastardized attempt at something I'd seen in a few kung fu movies over the years: I used her arm as leverage and pulled her around, trapping her wrist against her back. If I pulled up high enough, I'd twist it right out of the socket.

It was only when it had all finished and I had a moment to think about what was happening that I realized who I had in my arms.

"Amy?" I said, startled.

Amy's head whirled around as much as she was able to look back at me.

"Taylor?" she asked, sounding just as incredulous.

"Oh, fuck me," I vaguely heard Lisa mumble. " _Panacea_. How the _fuck_ did I miss _that_?"

"I…" I began. "What were you doing with a _fire extinguisher_?"

"I was trying to stop a bank robber," Amy said defensively. "Why did you _stop_ me?"

"Oh. I, uh…"

No, I wasn't about to explain the geis to Amy. This was not the time or the place, and I'd learned my lesson about trusting so easily.

"I, um, guess I… My body just kinda…moved on its own."

 _Taylor, you are terrible at this_.

Amy grunted. "Right. Sure. Can you let me go, now?"

I blinked and realized that I was still holding her like that, arm pinned to her lower back. It couldn't have been very comfortable.

"Oh," I said. "Right. Yeah. Sorry. I just —"

"LET GO OF MY SISTER, YOU BITCH!"

A car. I was hit by a car.

That was what it felt like as something slammed into me at what had to be thirty miles an hour, lifting me up off of my feet and throwing me across the floor. The tiles beneath me squealed as I slid ten, twenty, thirty feet back down the hall, and I came to a stop, ironically, not far outside of the office where Lisa and I had just left a minute ago.

For a moment, I was dazed. My ribs felt as though someone had taken a bat to them, and my head swam from conking it against the floor when I landed. As I managed to gather my wits, I closed my eyes and pressed a hand to my forehead, and then, carefully, I tried to stand back up. My ribs flared up and protested immediately, but a deeper feeling tugged at the inside of my chest, next to my heart, and I knew I couldn't afford to stay down.

I got to my feet a little shakily, and I had to force the stars from my vision as I opened my eyes. The world was tilted a little, off balance, but a few blinks cleared it up enough that I could get a good enough look at my assailant.

Platinum blonde hair, tiara on the top, white-on-white, a skirt, a cape. She was beautiful in a way that I would never be, and next to her, even someone like Lisa could seem rather plain and unremarkable. It would be easy, with her flawless appearance and her almost all-white color scheme, to imagine her as an avenging angel come down from heaven to smite the unjust, and with her powers, it wasn't a completely inaccurate image.

A wave of sudden fear washed over me, and my knees threatened to give out. I just wanted to run, to run as far and as fast as my legs would carry me, if I didn't just collapse to the ground, first. At that moment, I would have given anything not to be in front of her, anything not to be under the gaze of that wrathful goddess.

And she was coming my way.

"VICKY, NO!"

But Glory Girl paid her sister no mind, and she zoomed at me, racing across the hallway without her feet ever touching the ground.

"You shoulda stayed down, bitch!"

She swung at me again with a fist that could shatter concrete. It was reflex more than intention that moved my body, and I ducked under her blow; she zipped overhead without even skimming me. Then, as I straightened to face her, she stopped just as suddenly as she started and turned back around to face me, too.

The expression on her face was livid.

The inexplicable terror sharpened and grew, and I felt a cold sweat break out on my brow. I had no idea what my face looked like, if it reflected the fear inside of me, but with a supreme effort of will, I shoved that fear away. I had faced Lung, after all. I couldn't let myself be intimidated by Glory Girl. I couldn't let myself be cowed by her. I couldn't let myself roll over and let her do as she pleased.

The feeling tugging on the inside of my chest told me that I wasn't allowed to run away.

Glory Girl rocketed towards me, again, and I braced my legs, one forward, one back, and waited for her to come close. It was going to take expert timing, because there wasn't much room for error, here, but I was finally putting these skills to use.

At what felt like the last possible moment, I leapt upwards, tucking my legs into my chest, and passed over her arm, missing her by about two inches. Like a gymnast, I stuck the landing on the balls of my feet.

 _Leaping Over a Blow_.

I squashed the curl of excitement that whirled in my belly. I was doing it. I was using Aife's martial arts for the first time in an actual fight, _and they were working_.

"Damn it!" Glory Girl spun around again and came after me without stopping. "Stay still and let me hit you!"

From behind her, I met Lisa's eyes briefly. It was only a scant second, a fleeting moment, passing so quickly that I doubted anyone saw it, except Lisa herself. I hoped that I'd managed to convey my thoughts to her.

 _What are you waiting for? Get out of here!_

I had to keep fighting. For as long as it took to make good her escape, I had to keep Glory Girl distracted and busy. Yes, because it would be a betrayal of my oath to let her get caught when Coil had influence in the PRT. I held onto that thought: I couldn't run away, I had to fight, at least until Lisa escaped.

I kicked the ground. One step became twelve feet, and though I hadn't mastered it, the Vantage of Swiftness carried me towards my opponent. I dropped and let myself slide; the toe of one of Glory Girl's shoes nearly brushed my nose as I skidded across the floor beneath her.

I came up with what felt like an expert pivot of my ankle, and Glory Girl was already turning, fist raised, looking even angrier than before.

In spite of myself, I felt almost like bantering. Maybe if I'd been more like the heroes were on the cartoons, I would've done it, too.

Unlike the last few times, however, Glory Girl didn't rush me. Instead, her lips pulled into a tight line, and she dropped to the floor, like she actually meant to get up close and personal. I had no idea what she was doing or what she was planning, but I readied myself anyway.

She was almost too fast.

Suddenly, she was flying again, low and just off of the ground, and she accelerated from zero to speeding car almost instantly — I had no time to build up the momentum for either of the other feats I'd already used.

But I'd already mastered all of the basic stuff. The Thunder Feat and the other, more complicated skills, they were still beyond me, still stuff I had to learn. The basics, though, were completely mine.

I leapt straight up, curling myself into a ball so I didn't hit my head on the ceiling. As I flipped around in midair, I felt my toes brush up against the top of the hallway, and my hair whipped about my head so that all I could see were the dark locks I'd inherited from my mother.

 _Hero's Salmon Leap_.

I landed back on the balls of my feet, and I felt more than heard Glory Girl's fist coming back around for me. Continuing with the motion of my landing, I let myself fold in half so that the blow passed over the back of my head. I could feel the wind moving in the wake of her hand.

 _Folding of the Noble Chariot Fighter._

I felt invincible.

Glory Girl was so ridiculously out of my league, normally. Getting into a fist fight with a girl who could bench press a cement mixer wasn't a very good idea, and if she could hit me, she'd probably hit like a truck. Come to think of it, she was probably the one behind that crash that had brought Lisa and I out of that office — maybe she'd thrown one of Bitch's dogs into a table or something? I didn't know.

But even if she _could_ hurt me pretty badly, she had to actually hit me first, didn't she?

I put one foot forward, spun on my heel, and stepped out of Glory Girl's reach, so that I was facing her again. She had an odd expression, somewhere between frustration and grudging respect.

"Fuck," she said. "What are you, a ballerina?"

"Vicky!" Amy shouted. "Stop!"

"Stay out of this, Ames!" Glory Girl hollered back. She turned to me again with that glare. "So, what's your deal? You with them?"

She tossed her head in the direction of the black fog, but never took her eyes off of me. I glanced in the same direction, but Lisa had long since vanished. I doubted she'd escaped yet, though. The fog would disappear when she and her team left, because I couldn't imagine whoever was making it had the range to keep it up until they made it all the way back to their base in the Docks.

"No," I said simply.

Glory Girl snarled and stomped forward with one foot. I thought I might have seen a few cracks spread from the point of impact. "Then why were you manhandling my sister?"

"I just saw the fire extinguisher," I said, "not who was swinging it."

"So…what? Are you trying to tell me you reacted without thinking?"

"Basically, yeah."

Glory Girl grunted. For a moment, I thought she might actually stop fighting me, and I had no idea what I was supposed to do if she did leave me to go after Lisa's team. Did I get in her way and invalidate everything I just said? Could I not, if it would mean betraying my oath?

She took the decision out of my hands.

"See, there's just one problem with that." She raced forward in a passable imitation of my own technique. "I don't believe you!"

She led with her right fist. I spun around the side, whirling out of the way, ironically, like a ballerina. I ducked beneath it in another _Folding_ , stepping under her arm and back around her. She spun and swiped at me like she was swatting a fly; I leaned backwards, then stepped out of range, again.

"If you're gonna lie, make it believable!" she said.

"It wasn't a lie," I replied, for lack of anything better to say.

She swung again, I sidestepped into her guard. She tried to wrap her arms around me and pin me, I ducked under them and stepped back again.

"I _saw_ you come back out here with that blonde bitch!" said Glory Girl. "If you think I'm gonna let one of their accomplices escape just because you're in civvies, you're delusional!"

She flew up and tried to tackle me again; I threw myself out of the way. She turned on a dime and came back around.

"New Wave is about accountability!" she told me. "That means I take villains down, mask or no mask!"

 _You can try._

I knew better than to say that, but I found myself smiling a little all the same. For all her talk, she still hadn't landed a hit on me. All of those lessons, all of that practice, all of those weekends coming home drenched in sweat and with arms and legs that felt like noodles, it was all paying off. I'd started this fight just intending to stall for as much time as I could, but could it actually be that I could win?

Was this enough to push me up to B-Rank? I didn't know. I'd never checked my progress outside of tracking it with Aife's Noble Phantasm Included, so I didn't know how quickly I'd reach mastery if I employed them without her Include. Hell, I didn't know if using them in an actual fight made me progress faster than just practicing all by my lonesome.

But it felt like it must have. The kind of flawless execution I was doing here was mind-boggling. I'd even managed to pull off the starting stages of the _Vantage of Swiftness_.

I _Folded_ under another punch.

Then…was I finally ready? Could I start now on the harder parts, on the skills and Feats that were so incredible and so difficult that they couldn't be learned until you were B-Rank or higher?

 _Hell yes._

At the very least, I was ready to try.

As Glory Girl whirled back around and came zooming for me again, I didn't try to dodge. Instead, I wound my fist back and gathered all of my strength to it. Cuchulainn performed this with a sling and a heavy stone in the myth, but the purest form was that of a punch.

Glory Girl's fist came around. I swung my fist forward to meet it.

 _Thunder Feat_.

 _CRACK_

For a moment, I didn't know what happened. Our fists met, and then…

 _My arm isn't supposed to bend like that._

The force of the blow threw me backwards and onto the floor, wrenching my arm so far that it was nearly pulled out of the socket. I landed, stunned, on my back, still not sure what had happened and what had gone wrong.

Then, the pain hit me.

"Guh!" I gasped and my mouth flapped. I might have screamed, if my lungs hadn't seized from the shock of it.

I tried to move, to sit up, but shoots of liquid fire raced up and down my arm. My hand felt as though someone had taken a sledgehammer to it.

"Nnnnng!"

My teeth clenched. They clenched so hard I was afraid I might shatter them, too. Hot tears poured out of the corners of my eyes.

Oh. My arm was broken.

"Kuh! Haaaaa!"

It hurt. It hurt bad. I couldn't remember _ever_ being in this much pain. It was like someone had taken a thousand red-hot knives and stabbed them into my arm. It was like someone had cut open my arm and dipped acid inside. It was like every bone in my arm had been reduced to tiny splinters, all sawing into everything else with every faint twitch.

"Idiot," said Glory Girl. "That was stupid."

"Enough!"

Feet clattered against the tile floor, echoing, and a shadow cast itself over me. I blinked through the pain and the tears to see Amy, standing protectively in front of me with her arms thrown wide.

"Enough, Vicky!" she said again.

"Get out of the way, Ames," Glory Girl said. "I'm capturing a villain."

"She's not a villain!" Amy shouted. "She's just a girl who was in the wrong place at the wrong time!"

"She was with that blonde bitch!" Glory Girl snarled.

"She was taken back there at gunpoint!"

"She hurt you!"

"That was a misunderstanding!"

"She was _fighting me_!"

"You didn't give her much of a choice!" Amy yelled. "Besides!"

Amy gestured out to the open floor, and I followed her hand to see that the black fog had been cleared. Lisa and her team, the Undersiders, were nowhere to be seen. The hostages had all evacuated somewhere along the line, leaving behind not even the zip ties that had bound some of them. Vicky, Amy, and I were the only people left still inside the bank.

"If she was working with them, don't you think they would've at least _tried_ to come back for her?"

I felt some of the tension in me release, and I sagged against the floor, even as my arm continued to burn with shoots of agony. The insistent tugging inside of my chest had disappeared at some point, and if that wasn't a confirmation that Lisa had escaped, I wasn't sure what else would be.

I'd done it. Okay, so maybe it hadn't gone as smoothly as I would have liked and maybe my oath had been tested a little sooner than I would have preferred, but in the end, I'd done it. I'd managed, somehow, to buy her enough time. Lisa had escaped.

If only this actually felt like a job well done.

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

 **Amy gets to be a hero (kinda), Vicky jumps to conclusions (what else is new), and Taylor overestimates herself.**

 **Up next, two interludes.**

 **As always, read, review, and enjoy.**

 **And for early access to chapters and bonus content:**

 **p a treon . com (slash) James_D_Fawkes**


	23. Interlude 3-a: Mitotic Axiogenesis

**Trust 3.a: Mitotic Axiogenesis**

Taylor's body was strange, peculiar, and downright _fascinating_.

It wasn't that it was inhuman. She had all the right number of bones, her musculature was not in any way altered, and it wasn't like she had extra organs or anything. She didn't have a third eye or a tail or anything like that. No, everything was in its proper place, and Taylor had exactly as many parts as she was supposed to and no more.

What made her _fascinating_ was in how those parts were structured. Her bones were sturdier than they had any right to be, her muscles were denser and stronger than any athlete Amy had ever had the pleasure of examining, her blood and her cardiovascular system were more resilient and more efficient than should be humanly possible, and her _nerves_ …the speed at which her neurons fired, the rapidity with which impulses traveled from her brain, down her spinal cord, and into her limbs was just…

If a normal human being was a machine working to the tune of The Rolling Stones' Rock 'n Roll, Taylor's body was a Classical _symphony_ written by Beethoven.

It was possible to explain all of that if Taylor was a parahuman with a Brute power (and she was, indeed, a parahuman, because Amy could see the well-formed and active Corona Pollentia and Corona Gemma), and in terms of biology acting in ways it wasn't supposed to, Aegis of the Wards still had her beat for sheer oddity.

But only because his power let him adapt and do things like breathe through his skin or hear through his fingernails. In other ways, Taylor was stranger still, because with a body structure like hers, her muscle definition should rival an Amazon and her metabolism should have her going through almost four times as many calories as a normal human — and yet, neither of those was true.

 _How_? Amy didn't have an answer, right then. But it might have something to do with the strangest part of Taylor's body.

Because the strangest part? The strangest part, the part that was both fascinating and frustrating, was what Amy _couldn't_ see. There were parts in Taylor's biology that were just…not missing, exactly, but invisible. They were like black holes; Amy could only see them, could only tell where they were, by their connection to the surrounding tissues. Otherwise, they were just blank spaces thrown randomly around Taylor's body. Whatever was actually in those blank spaces, Amy could only guess based upon where they were and what was around them.

Amy had never seen anything like it, before. Of all the countless people she had touched and healed, of all the maladies and diseases she had cured, of all the subtle differences in everything from genetic structure to calcium content to some truly bizarre allergies, Amy had never before touched someone whose body wasn't like an open book.

Taylor was a mystery.

And she definitely wanted to solve it.

Amy's brow furrowed.

Of course, the fact that parts of her were so mysterious and invisible also made her much harder to heal. The strangely dense bones and the peculiar, too-strong muscles were easy, because it was just a matter of copying the way the rest of them looked. Trying to put back together a part that she couldn't see, that was completely invisible to her power, would be like trying to pick the right toy in one of those claw machines while blindfolded.

Fortunately, none of the bone fragments that were scattered throughout Taylor's arm were located in or connected to one of those blank spots. If they were, Amy would have had to give up and send Taylor to the hospital to have them manually put everything back together — a long, difficult, painful process that would never have healed quite the same way and probably would have resulted in permanent loss of functionality in her hand and wrist.

It would have been even worse, because Taylor's hand was basically a maraca. Her fingers were _mostly_ intact, but the carpals had all been…pulped wasn't a good word, but most of the bone fragments were measured in millimeters. A normal doctor would've had to remove at least some of them and reinforce whatever of the rest he could reconstruct with pins and metal rods. No matter what, Taylor would have lost most of the fine motor control in what was probably her dominant hand.

What had possessed Taylor to try and meet Vicky punch for punch, Amy didn't know. Vicky's strength was well known, and her propensity for accidentally causing more damage than she meant to was often joked about on PHO — Amy should know, she heard about it every few days when Vicky decided she need to vent.

"Alexandria Junior" was one of the nicer versions. "Collateral Damage Barbie" was the one that really got Vicky's blood boiling.

Hell, Amy didn't understand why Taylor hadn't just lied down and stayed down after Vicky had first tackled her. Some sense of pride, maybe? Those moves she'd used _had_ looked like some kind of martial art. Maybe Taylor had wanted to test herself against a Brute, to see if skill could overcome strength? Or maybe Taylor had just never had a good fight before? For that matter, maybe Taylor's week had been about as shitty as Amy's had been, and she'd just wanted to blow off some steam.

Whatever the reason, the results were about what Amy might have expected. Most injuries and diseases, she could fix in a matter of seconds, and those that took longer than that tended to be things like regrowing an arm or dealing with more sensitive tissues. To fix Taylor's shattered arm and hand, it took Amy what must have been twenty minutes, which consisted entirely of carefully maneuvering the fragments of bone back into their proper positions and merging them back into their original shapes.

It was a bit more time consuming to do it that way than, say, turning all of the bone fragments into stem cells and maneuvering them back into place, then turning them back into bone, but it did give Amy a longer look at Taylor's biology. It also gave her time to think about the whole messy, fucked up situation and decide whether she was going to yell at Taylor for being stupid or ask her to be friends. So, slow and meticulous way it was.

After that, she also had to fix the lacerations and soft tissue damage inflicted by the bone fragments. Those were much easier, though. Soft tissue always was. It didn't break off into rigid chunks the way bone did, so it was usually just a matter of putting the ends back together and reconnecting them. Amy could have done that in her sleep, and sometimes, she wasn't sure she didn't.

It was about an hour after the Undersiders' escape, sitting on the back ledge of an ambulance, that Amy finished healing up Taylor's arm. It was as good as if it had never been injured in the first place, everything back the way it was supposed to be.

Fortunately, Taylor was the only bystander who'd been injured in the whole thing. Everyone else had been shaken and maybe a little bruised from where they'd bumped into each other when the Undersiders released them, blind and deaf, through that cloud of darkness, but none of them had needed actual medical attention, so Amy had been able to take her time.

And maybe ogle the strangeness of Taylor's body a bit. Just a bit, though.

"All done," said Amy.

Taylor took her arm as Amy let go and started flexing her wrist and checking her range of motion. Her hand curled into a fist, then unfurled, then curled into a fist again, and then Taylor touched each fingertip to the heel of her palm one at a time.

"Thanks, Amy," Taylor murmured. She seemed somewhat distracted.

Amy wasn't quite sure where to go from there. She'd never really been very good at the whole…friend thing. She'd never really picked up one of her own. Most of the people she hung out with were Vicky's friends who liked things Vicky liked, and Amy only hung out with them because it was really Vicky she was there for.

God, it sounded even more pathetic like that. How desperate was she for even the slightest scrap of attention from Vicky that she'd hang out with a bunch of people she didn't even like, just because it made Vicky happy?

(Who was she kidding? She'd do it over and over again, and no amount of self-loathing was going to change that. It never had any of the other times, either.)

Now, there was Taylor, and…maybe she was a friend? They hadn't had enough time to really connect beyond the basic, "What's your name and what brings you here?" The only reason they'd even gotten that far was because Taylor hadn't asked for touch-ups the way most idiots who tried to "befriend" her did, and because…

Well, because Taylor was everything Amy had wanted for herself almost since the moment she got her powers. Taylor was…normal. She was just plain. There was nothing special about her that garnered attention, like Vicky's good looks and celebrity status. She didn't turn heads everywhere she went. She was nobody important and there was no reason why anyone would pay her any mind as she walked down the street.

And Amy, who was Panacea, the famous healer who could fix anything shy of death itself, craved that more than anything else. To be normal, again. To not have any worries about her power and using it for good. To not have that pressure.

Enter Taylor, who didn't know Panacea and didn't really care to. "Thanks, Amy," she'd said. Not, "Thank you, Panacea." Amy. Just Amy. No blubbering, no tears, no clinging awkwardly to Amy's arm. No slavering praise all over the great "Panacea." Just a simple, honest, "Thanks, Amy," like Amy had just passed her the salt or handed her the milk.

And now that the chance for a normal, real friendship was dangling in front of her, she…had no idea what to say.

"What were you _thinking_?" was probably not the right thing, though.

Taylor blinked and looked back at her. "Huh?"

"Fighting Vicky," Amy clarified. "Why? What were you _thinking_?"

Taylor's expression was somewhere between a smile and a grimace. A wry grin, self-deprecating.

"It's complicated."

"Complicated?" asked Amy. "What does that even _mean_ , complicated?"

"It means that I can't explain…" Taylor cut off and glanced around, then leaned in a little. "Look, you've figured out I'm a cape already, right?"

"Well, yeah," said Amy, not quite sure what that had to do with anything. "With your body the way it is, there's no way —"

"Right," Taylor spoke over her. "So it's got something to do with that, but I can't really…"

She stopped and glanced around. Amy did, too, and realized what she meant after a moment: they were basically surrounded. No one was paying them much mind, right then, but there were police and PRT squads all over the place, and they'd cordoned off the whole street in front of the bank. Some of them were interviewing witnesses and hostages, and some were holding back the reporters and the crowd of busybodies who were clamoring at the police line and trying to see what was happening.

"Oh."

Right. Yeah. New Wave had openly embraced the idea of capes without masks, of cape accountability, and even though they hadn't tried pushing the movement forward since Fleur, it was still their official policy. Amy could understand, however, and respect the fact that most capes didn't want to have their real names and their faces beneath the masks plastered all over the place. There were days when Amy wished she could have been one of them.

With that many people around, there was no way to have a private conversation about cape stuff. To try would mean Taylor would out herself, and if Amy's suspicions were correct, out herself before she even put on her costume for the first time — if she ever even planned to go _that_ far. There were some parahumans who never even bothered to put on a mask, for good or for ill, and just went about their lives without really using their powers.

"Right. Yeah."

Taylor frowned and didn't say anything, and the two of them fell into an awkward silence. She looked like she was thinking very deeply about something, and Amy suddenly felt like she was unwelcome and intruding.

Fuck. She was terrible at this, wasn't she?

"Right. Yeah. Okay. I'll just…"

 _Good job blowing it, Amy_. It was time to make a graceless retreat. She started to slide off of the ambulance, trying to remember where it was she'd last seen Vicky.

"I could explain it to you, if you'll hear me out," Taylor said slowly, stopping Amy in her tracks.

"What?"

"I could explain it, if you'll hear me out," Taylor repeated. "Somewhere where we won't be overheard."

Amy hesitated.

"I…there's a coffee shop on the Boardwalk that Vicky and I go to —"

"No Vicky!" Taylor snapped. She grimaced and took a quick glance around, but no one seemed to have heard her outburst. "Sorry. Um, no, uh… Just you and me. Not your sister."

"Okay, but…why, exactly, should I not bring Vicky?"

Taylor's brow furrowed. "Because…she doesn't know?" she offered. "That I'm a cape, I mean."

Amy stared at her incredulously.

"Are you kidding?" she asked. "Taylor, Vicky's not stupid. The way you were moving…"

"That…has nothing to do with my power, actually," Taylor corrected. "That was all martial arts."

For a moment, Amy couldn't believe that she was actually serious. But Taylor didn't suddenly shout, "Gotcha!" or laugh it off as a joke, so Amy had to take it to mean she _was_ serious. "Taylor," she said slowly, "you were moving faster and with more grace than I've seen in most professional _athletes_."

Taylor blinked and turned to look at her with a dumbfounded expression on her face, like Amy had just told her that the sky was green or the Earth was flat. Had she really not realized exactly how incredible it was that she'd been managing to keep up with Vicky well enough to dodge around her that easily?

"Huh," Taylor mumbled with a slight bit of awe. She looked down at her own arm with wonder. "I mean, I knew that things back then were… But I never thought…"

"Never thought…what?" asked Amy.

Taylor blinked again and looked back up at her, and then her lips pulled back into a frown. Amy didn't need to hear her say it to figure out what she meant. "Right. That's part of what you don't want to talk about out in the open."

"Yeah," Taylor agreed a little awkwardly.

They fell into another silence, and Amy sat there, wondering whether it would be worth it — worth it to go somewhere with this veritable stranger just to satisfy her curiosity, worth it to try and befriend this strange girl who had fought her sister (whatever the actual reason was), worth it to actually try and make a friend after so long with Vicky as her only _real_ friend…

It was a little peculiar in and of itself, really. Amy wasn't sure why she wanted to be Taylor's friend so much, why she was even considering the idea so seriously. Wasn't Vicky the only friend and companion she even needed, even if Vicky would never love her the way Amy loved Vicky? Did she need to make another friend in this girl, even if it would be her first _real_ friend outside her own family, even if she really wanted to understand why this girl's body was so strange and why she'd fought Vicky?

What it really came down to was normalcy. Taylor represented that, represented a chance to have some of that, a chance to spend time with a girl who considered her Amy first and Panacea a distant second, if at all. If Taylor could give her that, even if it was only a little bit, even if it was only a few hours a week…

Amy wanted that. Amy craved that maybe more than she'd ever realized, before. The chance to stop being Panacea of New Wave, the chance to go a little while without that hanging over her head and invading every moment of her life. The chance to be Amy, just Amy, if only for a little while.

"So," Amy began, sounding to her ears more sure than she felt, "where, uh… Where do you want to meet, then?"

Taylor looked at Amy as though she wasn't quite sure she believed what she was hearing. After a moment, she said, "There's a little coffee shop a few streets away from the Boardwalk. Kinda rustic looking. It's called Ahnenerbe. Red brick, green sign."

"Ahnenerbe?" asked Amy. "That sounds a bit…Well…"

Nazi-ish, she didn't say. Maybe it was just that the E88 had ruined anything even vaguely German sounding, though. That tended to happen when the leader of the gang called himself "Kaiser" and every single one of their members appropriated Norse and German mythology left, right, and center.

Taylor seemed to catch on and shook her head. "I don't know about any of that, but I didn't see any posters of Hitler or swastika flags hanging from the rafters. My friend, Lisa…"

She stopped, and for a moment, she looked so incredibly lost that Amy had to check the withered, anemic impulse to reach out and offer her a friendly hand. After a few seconds, she gave a tiny shake of her head and went on as though she'd never stopped.

"My friend, Lisa, could probably explain everything about it," Taylor said. A wry, bittersweet smile tugged at her lips and was gone just as quickly. "She probably knows where each brick came from and how it was laid. She's the one who showed it to me."

That last bit hung in the air for a few seconds, and Amy wondered if maybe the pause had been because Lisa was a friend Taylor had lost. Killed, maybe, in a gang shootout? Amy had seen plenty of those victims over the last couple of years.

She didn't ask. Amy, better than most, knew about the keeping of one's secrets and pains suffered in silence.

"So…"

"Tomorrow morning?" Taylor said. "Say, around ten o'clock?"

Amy shook her head. "School."

Taylor blinked. "Oh," she said simply. "Well, um…"

"But I get out around two-thirty," Amy added. "So I could be there around three."

"Oh," Taylor said again. "Sure. That works."

"Don't…you have school, too?"

Something crossed Taylor's face, a dark expression that she hid by turning away. "It's…complicated. Something happened recently, and Dad said I'm not going back until it's all been sorted out."

"Oh," it was Amy's turn to say. She didn't really know what else she _could_ say. Taylor didn't seem like she wanted to talk about it, so Amy didn't ask.

She cleared her throat.

"So. Tomorrow afternoon around three?"

Taylor turned back around long enough to offer her a wan smile so fake that it almost hurt to look at.

"See you then."

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

It was early evening by the time Amy and Victoria finally made it home, and it had been a long, tiring day. Not only with the whole debacle at the bank, but in the aftermath, having to heal the Wards who had been injured in the fight. Just…the mess of that entire situation was already enough that Amy was ready to call it a day.

And Gallant, with his useless attempt at "helping" her. Fuck Gallant and his imaginary white horse.

So it was a very mentally drained Amy, with Victoria complaining rather loudly (for the third time in as many hours) about being forced to cancel their double date, who walked through the front door of the Dallon family home.

"— just _had_ to be today," Vicky was saying. "Couldn't they have done it tomorrow, so we didn't have to cancel our double date? Or better yet, couldn't they have done their robbery on a _weekend_ , like sensible, reasonable people? On a Sunday, even. No one does anything on _Sundays_. We wouldn't have had anything _important_ going on, then."

Privately, Amy disagreed. Sure, it had been terrifying and horrific and not at all fun, and zero-out-of-ten, Amy would _not_ do it again, but the bank robbery _had_ gotten her out of that double date, in the end. If nothing else, she could be thankful to the Undersiders and their villainy for _that_ much.

She'd never tell anyone, though.

In fact, when she'd desperately wished for something to happen to force the date to cancel (so that she wouldn't have to sit with a boy she didn't know or want to know and watch Vicky and Dean make kissy faces at each other), a bank robbery — while Amy herself was _inside_ the bank — was not something she would have considered or asked for. Couldn't God or Scion or whoever had been listening have picked something a little more tame?

Gift horses, though. Amy wasn't about to go looking this one in the mouth.

"— you think so, Ames?"

"Sure," Amy replied automatically.

But Vicky didn't keep talking, and when Amy stopped and looked back at her, she was frowning. "What?"

"You feeling alright, Ames?"

"Fine," said Amy.

Vicky's brow furrowed and her eyes narrowed as she tilted her head a little.

"You sure? You don't _look_ fine. Or sound fine."

Amy sighed. "It's just been a long day."

Vicky made a strange sound in her throat. "Is this about that girl from today?" she asked. "Because I said I was sorry."

"Sorry?" Amy snapped, patience suddenly gone. "You shattered her arm!"

It was, she noted in some distant part of her brain, one of the few times she'd genuinely shouted at Vicky, because Vicky rarely did anything that she got well and truly angry about. Maybe on another day, maybe after a less shitty week, she wouldn't even have been yelling and she would have let it pass. She did that a lot for Vicky — let things pass because she cared more about Vicky than about the things Vicky had done wrong.

Not now, though. Not after this week. Not after being woken up on one of the few nights she'd been sleeping well to go and check up on a de-limbed Lung. Not after Vicky herself had called her out to help heal another one of her "accidents," also in the middle of the night. Not after being caught in the middle of a bank robbery _and_ having to fix _another_ of Vicky's messes, this time a civilian girl (and one Amy might, just might, have been hitting it off with) who had been on the wrong end of one of Vicky's "act first, think about it later" moments.

"It was so bad that she would _never_ have regained even _most_ of the functionality in it, if the doctors didn't just amputate outright — if, _if_ I hadn't been there to heal her!"

"But you were and you did," said Vicky simply, far more calm than Amy thought she had any right to be.

"Vicky!"

"Look." Vicky's voice began rising. "You healed her, she's fine, everyone's fine, so no harm done."

"That's not…!" Amy struggled to find the words, for a moment. "You almost _crippled_ a girl, Vicky! A civilian!"

"Civilian _my ass_!" Vicky said. "You _saw_ how she moved, how fast she was! You can't tell me that she wasn't a cape!"

"That's not the _point_! Whether or not she's a cape, she was there as a _civilian_ and she was one of the Undersiders' _hostages_ —"

"I still don't believe that!" Vicky interrupted. "If she wasn't with them, then why'd she fight me? What was she doing there, conveniently on the same day as the Undersiders _robbed_ it? Why did she come back out with that blonde bitch, Tattletale?"

"You didn't give her much choice!" Amy shouted back. "And I was there, too, Vicky! I'm also a cape who happened to be at the bank when they robbed it! Does that make _me_ one of the Undersiders' accomplices, too?"

"Of course not!" Vicky said indignantly. "But you have to admit, it's suspicious, Ames!"

"If _that_ was enough reason to get into a slug-out with someone —"

"She was manhandling you!" Vicky exclaimed.

"She was about to let me go!" Amy replied. "And she's a martial artist or something! Once you get good enough at that sort of thing, responding to violence becomes almost instinctual!"

"And for that matter," Vicky said as though Amy hadn't spoken, "and for that matter, if she was a cape and she wasn't with the Undersiders, why didn't she _fight_ them?"

"Because not everyone can be New Wave, Vicky!" Something dangerous, a confession of her own pains and longings, hovered in the wings, waiting to be said. Amy had to force herself not to say it. "Not everyone can throw away any _chance_ at a normal, civilian life just to stop a team of C-list burglars from robbing a fucking bank! Not everyone can spend every day of their lives being yo —"

"ENOUGH!"

Both girls whipped around to find Carol Dallon standing in the entranceway to the living room. Her face was fierce and stern, and her lips were drawn into a tight, foreboding line. This was a Carol that Amy had not much seen in recent years, a woman full of motherly wrath for her children who had stepped out of line.

Well. For her daughter and her barely tolerated guest, Amy thought bitterly.

"Both of you, living room. _Now_." Carol's arm snapped out and pointed imperiously through the entranceway. Neither of the girls moved, at first.

"Mom —" began Vicky.

" _Now_ , Victoria," barked Carol.

Vicky, perhaps sensing that this was not the time to test her mother's patience, grudgingly started walking. Amy went just a step behind her, resigned to whatever was about to come. She felt Carol follow, so close that Amy could almost feel her breath on the nape of her neck, as though to block off all chance of escape.

"Sit," Carol ordered once they were all inside.

Vicky took a seat on the couch and Amy sat down on the other end of it. Carol, arms folded across her chest, stood in front of them.

"I received a very interesting call from Deputy Director Renick, this afternoon," she said levelly. "Would you care to know what he told me?"

"She was manhandling Amy, Mom," Vicky began, "honest —"

"Be _quiet_ , Victoria!" snapped Carol. Vicky's mouth clicked shut, and Carol nodded. "Now, there was something about a bank robbery and breaking a girl's arm? The Undersiders were involved?"

Neither of the girls spoke. Carol turned to her and asked, "Amy?"

"…The Undersiders showed up while I was at the bank getting some money for the double date Vicky and I were supposed to be going on tonight," Amy said.

"I see," said Carol, giving nothing of her thoughts away. "And you were…?"

"One of the hostages, yeah," Amy confirmed. "I was…was sitting next to a girl I'd met while I was there — Taylor — when they came in. She almost had a panic attack."

She almost missed Carol's lips thinning as she shot a meaningful look at Vicky — as though to say, "See? Bystander." Vicky still didn't seem convinced.

"I see," said Carol again. "This would be the same girl, then, whose arm Victoria broke?"

"Yes," Amy answered.

"And she's a cape, too? Am I understanding that correctly?"

"…Yes," Amy answered a second time, a little more hesitantly. "Um, minor Brute and Mover, it looked like. Maybe a two or a three, but nothing to really write home about."

Carefully, Amy made sure not to mention the blank spots. That would count as a Trump power, and that was a bag she didn't want to open — especially since she didn't have any idea what it meant. What kind of Trump power only blocked _some_ parts of the body from her view, anyway?

"And you, Victoria," Carol turned towards her daughter, "you think she was an accomplice of the Undersiders?"

"She came back from one of the offices just behind that blonde bitch, Tattletale!" Vicky said, sounding as though she'd been holding onto that since she'd sat down. "Then, then, I saw her grab Amy and put her into a — what do you call it — a submission hold! Yeah, like in those Kung Fu movies!"

"And that's when you —"

"I pushed her off of Amy, of course," Victoria replied, talking like it was the natural thing to do.

"And you didn't go to help the Wards, after that?"

"Well, that girl wouldn't stay down," Vicky admitted.

Carol's eyes flashed. "You _fought_ her?"

"Well, yeah," said Vicky. "She wouldn't stay down. She just got back up and kept dancing around me like some kind of fu — freaking ballerina. Said something about how she wasn't with the Undersiders, but I mean, c'mon, she was in the back with Tattletale and came back out with her, too. _And_ she hurt Amy."

"I _was_ swinging a fire extinguisher around," Amy mumbled.

Carol reached up and started to rub at the bridge of her nose. "And this," she said, "is when you broke her arm?"

"Well, she came at me," Vicky reasoned. "I took a swing at her, she was taking a swing at me. We met somewhere in the middle and she came off worse."

"And you were 'swinging' hard enough to _break her arm_ ," Carol clarified.

"Well, yeah." Vicky didn't seem to understand the problem. "I mean, she didn't go down the first time, did she? I had to hit her a little harder than that."

Carol turned now to Amy expectantly. "How bad was it?"

"Everything was basically splinters from the elbow down," said Amy. "Bruising and micro tears at the shoulder joint, from a near dislocation. Nerve damage. Tendon damage. Most of the small bones in her hand were completely shattered. With normal medical treatment…maybe fifteen percent functionality, after it healed? Damage that bad, the doctors might have just amputated it, though."

Carol's eyes closed and she let out a breath through her nose. "And you healed her? Fixed everything?"

"Even the bruised ribs," Amy confirmed.

"C'mon, Mom," Vicky said, "she was a villain. What was I supposed to do?"

Carol whirled around on her daughter. "Show some restraint!" she barked. "Victoria, you're an Alexandria package! _Enhanced strength_ means that you have to exercise _enhanced restraint_! That means understanding when and how to apply your powers and how much of them to use! That means understanding that you have the _serious_ ability to _hurt someone_ , and that it is _much easier_ for you to do serious or even _permanent_ damage to anyone you hit! It means —"

She whipped out a piece of paper and waved it in Vicky's face, but Amy couldn't see what it said. "— that you _do not_ hit a civilian girl with enough strength to shatter her arm, that you _do not_ escalate needlessly when confronted with a problem that you can't easily solve, and that you _do not_ — and I _cannot_ stress this enough — you _do not_ burst through the ceiling of a building made of brick and marble and endanger the lives of the hostages inside!"

Carol turned away only long enough to slap the paper down on the coffee table. "Deputy Direct Renick," she said angrily, "has assured me that the girl whose arm you broke has not intimated any intentions to sue you for damages, and fortunately, neither the bank nor the city of Brockton Bay is pursuing a case for the damages incurred from your little _stunt_."

Vicky looked as stricken as Amy felt, as though she had not even considered the possibility of something like that happening.

"In other words," Carol went on, "neither the police nor the mayor is interested in punishing you for what happened, today. _That does not mean that I won't_."

"But Mom," Vicky began.

"You're grounded," Carol said firmly. "One month. No dates with Dean, no hanging out with your friends, and _no patrols_." Vicky started to protest. "Don't make me turn it into two!"

"But what about Amy?" Vicky whined.

Carol's gaze swept over in Amy's direction, and Amy prepared herself for her own punishment — not, in the end, that being grounded would actually be all that bad, really.

"Amy," Carol replied, "didn't _break a girl's arm_. _She_ did nothing wrong. _She_ isn't grounded. _You_ are."

Amy wondered if her face reflected the sheer astonishment that she was feeling inside.

"Now," said Carol. "Dinner will be ready in about ten minutes. Go get washed up, the both of you."

For a moment, neither Vicky nor Amy moved, as though they had been glued to their seats. Then, Carol made a shooing motion and said, "Go on."

Vicky got up first, looking vaguely stunned, and made for the stairs. After a few seconds, Amy got up, too, and followed her, wondering, with all of the strange and downright peculiar things that had happened today, what sort of crazy, sideways alternate reality had she stepped into?

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

 **I can see the rolled eyes from here. "Of course he had her befriend Amy," some are probably saying. Except...that's not really what's happened here, is it? Certainly, the possibility has been set up, but having that work requires that Taylor passes a charisma check against the most cynical girl in Worm. I... Well, if you want to see if she does, that's answered in 4.1.**

 **Also, Amy doesn't like cooperating with me. She's hard to write for.**

 **Also, also, a kinda reasonable Carol Dallon! It's like a Volvo with a gun rack, you don't see too many of those.**

 **As always, read, review, and enjoy.**

 **And for early access to chapters and bonus content:**

 **p a treon . com (slash) James_D_Fawkes**


	24. Interlude 3-b: Pathos Dichonoia (Lament)

**Trust 3.b: Pathos Dichonoia (Lamentation)**

It was a tired, sore, and beaten Wards who dragged themselves into their base inside the PRT Headquarters. They were all in varying states of "tired," "defeated," and "wounded," none more so than their leader, Aegis, who had come off the battle with the Undersiders worse than any of his teammates, or indeed all of them combined.

None of them, however, had come away completely unscathed. Vista was perhaps the best off out of all of them, with a couple of bruises and a single black eye that Gallant was pretty sure one of them had given her on accident. Gallant and Clockblocker weren't quite as well off, but Clockblocker had avoided the worst by freezing himself inside his own costume, and Gallant's armor had protected him from more than some bruises and maybe a few cracked ribs — unlike Aegis, who Hellhound's dogs had used as a chew toy.

Perhaps they would have fared better if Vicky hadn't gotten caught up and had been able to actually help them, but for all that Dean appreciated his girlfriend and had to acknowledge the advantages of an Alexandria package, he rather doubted it. Most of the fight had been fought in Grue's darkness, with the Wards blind and deaf to the enemy, and even the few hits Vicky got in on the dogs had only temporarily stunned them.

Likely, Dean thought, Vicky would have wound up doing more damage to _them_ than to the Undersiders. That was certainly one of the problems they'd had; more than once, they'd hit each other in the confusion, and Dean wouldn't be surprised if someone told him that most of the damage done to them — aside the obvious bites, scratches, and dents caused by the dogs — had come from each other.

There was a reason, it seemed, why the Undersiders were called masters of the escape, and the Wards had discovered firsthand exactly what that was today.

"What a wonderful day this has been," Clockblocker groaned as he pulled off Aegis' mask. "We respond to a bank robbery and get chewed on by a couple of giant bitches, then we come back to HQ to get chewed on by _another_ giant bitch."

"You know better than to say something like that," Dean scolded. "If Piggot heard you say that —"

"She'd what? Put me in charge sooner?" Dennis asked humorlessly.

"Or stick you on console duty for the rest of your career as a Ward," Dean said. "You really want to be stuck doing that until you graduate?"

"No."

"It's not like he's wrong," Missy piped up. "We did our best while the adults were out schmoozing it up at that fundraiser or whatever. It's not our fault the Undersiders have five or six different ways to kick our damn teeth in."

"Language," said Dean. Missy flushed, but didn't offer a rebuttal.

"Anyway," she went on, "it's not like the Protectorate has ever done any better. The Undersiders have gotten the better of them a couple of times, too. It's not fair to pick on us for letting them get away, too."

Dennis made a sound in the back of his throat. "It's 'cause she doesn't have as much authority over the Protectorate. She can't tell them off whenever she's feeling pissy, because they can quit whenever they want."

"That's enough," Aegis grunted. "Complain later. I'm gonna shower. Get patched up. You guys debrief."

"Aye, Captain!" Dennis offered a sarcastic salute. Aegis — Carlos, now, with the mask off — shook his head and left.

Dean didn't quite catch what he mumbled as he went, but the sour notes of annoyance that roiled around him made it clear they weren't very polite. Dean sighed. They were all smarting after the fiasco that the fight with the Undersiders had been.

"Missy?" he said, addressing their youngest. "Could you go and get a couple of whiteboards for us to use?"

Missy, who had by now taken off her wig and her visor, blushed again and nearly ran off in her eagerness to do as he asked. Dean watched her go as the swirls of affection and excitement wafted off of her like steam.

That…might have been a mistake. Missy's crush was obvious, but Dean had done his best to pretend he didn't notice it and quietly discourage it without being mean or cruel.

"Is Kid Win gonna be alright?" asked Browbeat. "I mean, is it really serious?"

"My gut says she just wants to scare him," said Dean. "This isn't the first time he's tested the limits, and it's better he learns now, before he does it with someone stricter or tries to do it when he's graduated to the Protectorate. The punishments are a lot more serious, then."

Kid Win probably wasn't feeling that optimistic, though. That Alternator Cannon was one of his most successful projects; it must've stung really badly to have it taken away after having barely gotten to use it.

The regulations were there for a reason, however, and Dean thought maybe it was high time Kid Win learned that. Using untested gear in the field was profoundly reckless.

"Oh."

"One hell of a way to start your career as a Ward, huh?" asked Dennis.

"Fuck. If I knew what even happened, maybe," said Browbeat. "I was down and out before I even had any idea what was going on. I think I must've gotten tasered, but I didn't see or hear whoever got me, so I dunno." He grimaced. "Least I didn't get turned into a giant chew toy."

"You and me both!" Dennis laughed.

"Just be glad they didn't have a Shaker that messes with gravity or a cloner or something. That fight could have been a whole lot harder."

Missy came back, then, wheeling two whiteboards with her.

"Thanks, Missy."

Missy flushed again and smiled a pleased little smile as she returned back to where the rest of them were standing. Notes of satisfaction-pleasure-affection floated around her head like butterflies. Dean acted like they didn't exist.

"Mind if I take point, Dennis?"

"Fine by me," Dennis replied, waving it away. "I'm putting the whole leadership schtick off for as long as I can. 'Specially since I'll only be leader for a month or two before it's your turn, anyway."

Dean sighed and reached up, pressing the release on his helmet, and lifted it off his head. "Thanks anyway."

He reached over and picked up a marker, then turned to his teammates. "Alright. So, before we get started, I just wanted to say that no matter how much today felt like we lost pretty badly, we did manage to score some very important victories. I'd even go so far as to say we scored some of _the_ most important victories."

He took a minute to let the swirls of confusion and curiosity percolate, then offered them all a winsome smile. He'd gotten rather good at those since he'd gotten his powers.

"Up until now, the Undersiders have gotten away from every job they've pulled almost entirely without a fight. This time, however, we got there quick enough that they had to fight us, first, and that means we finally have intel on what they can do and how some of their powers work."

Dean turned around to the whiteboards and separated each one into two columns with a thick, black line, then wrote Grue and Tattletale on one, and on the other, Hellhound and Regent. Each had their own column.

"What about that other girl?" asked Browbeat. "The one who was fighting Glory Girl?"

"She was a civilian," Missy answered. Something between relish and vindication threaded through what Dean could only think to call her aura. "Glory Girl jumped the gun when she saw her put Panacea in an arm hold."

Browbeat just looked more confused. Dean didn't need his powers to see it in his body language.

"All the hostages I talked to said that girl was in the bank with them when the Undersiders dropped in," said Dennis. "Tattletale apparently held her at gunpoint and forced her to help her out with whatever she was doing in those back offices."

"Why did she have Panacea in an arm hold, then?" Browbeat asked.

Dennis shook his head.

"No idea. You'd have to ask Panacea that."

"For now," said Dean, steering them back on track, "we'll leave any theorizing about our mystery girl for later. Let's talk about the Undersiders: what did we learn? What did we find out that will help us when we fight them again in the future? No detail is too small here, guys."

"Those mutant dogs that Hellhound makes," Vista started off, "they're not Mastered. She doesn't use her mind to control them. They're trained. She tells them what to do with whistles and gestures and stuff."

"Good." Dean wrote it down in Hellhound's column. "Yeah, I noticed that, too."

"Grue," offered Browbeat, "his power isn't just darkness. You can't hear inside of it, either. And it was strange moving around inside of it, there was some kind of resistance, like being underwater."

"Yes, that's great!"

Dean put that down in Grue's column, playing up at the excitement to get the rest of them going. Make them forget about just how badly they'd gotten thrashed, get them to focus on finding ways to fight the Undersiders better next time.

"Shadow Stalker could have told us that _ages_ ago," muttered Dennis.

Everyone stopped. Dean, halfway through writing the word "resistance," froze up, too. Dennis had just spoken the forbidden word, the taboo name that the Wards had all been avoiding for nearly two days. Everybody had been afraid to mention her, afraid to broach the subject, like to say it was to make it somehow more real. Even Dean hadn't wanted to try and tackle the complicated pile of emotions that was now attached to Sophia's very name.

"What do you think actually happened?" asked Missy quietly.

Dennis snorted. There wasn't any amusement in it. "Knowing her, she went on one of her solo patrols and ran into something too big to handle on her own."

"Dennis," Dean said sharply. It was bad form to speak ill of the dead.

But Dennis just shook his head. "You can't tell me you didn't think it, too," he said. "That she was gonna wind up seriously hurt or killed if she kept going off on her own, like that." Under his breath, he added, "Or do it to someone else."

Dean grimaced, but couldn't deny it. No one had been under any illusions about why Sophia was a _probationary_ Ward, and if they had been when she joined, her abrasive personality and her disdain for them and how they worked would quickly have changed that.

Dean had tried to help her, but she'd rebuffed him at every chance. Some people just didn't want to change, to resolve their problems. Some people were fine with wallowing in the dark. He'd still tried. If he'd succeeded or if he'd tried a little harder, then maybe…

But there was no use in that, now. You couldn't save the dead.

"I never really liked her," Missy admitted, "but that doesn't mean I wanted her dead."

"I don't think anyone really did," said Dennis. "She tried her hardest not to make any friends, here."

"And that makes it okay?" asked Missy, standoffish. "Just because nobody liked her?"

"No," Dennis replied. "But you're not going to see me bawling my eyes out over her. She was a bitch and she didn't respect anyone here. Being hot doesn't make up for the fact that she had the personality of a particularly angry crocodile."

"Guys," tried Browbeat.

Missy ignored him.

"So, you're happy she's gone, then? As long as you could…could stare at her _ass_ , everything else could go?"

Dennis bristled a little. The room began to fill with the sickly black-red of their anger and pain, and Dean had to blink as his eyes watered from the sight of it. It was like looking at a festering, cancerous growth.

"You know what? I think I am. I'm glad to be rid of that 'I'm better than you' pain in the ass. I'm glad I don't have to listen to her talk about how we're all wusses who don't know how to tie our own damn _shoes_. I'm _glad_ I don't have to listen to another lecture from Piggot because the _great_ Sophia fucking _Hess_ decided to abandon her assigned route to go off and play _Batman_ with whatever poor sap she could find!"

"Guys," Browbeat tried again.

"I'm _glad_ ," Dennis went on, "that I don't have to put up with her surly glares and her insults and all of that _anger_ and _hate_ she carries around like she's the only one who's ever had a _goddamn_ _Trigger Event_!"

"At least she had a fucking spine!" Missy yelled back. "At least she —"

"What's all the shouting about?"

Missy stopped, and they all turned to see Carlos, freshly showered and clad only in a pair of sweatpants. He'd stitched up the wounds he'd gotten from Hellhounds dogs, but clumsily; they were still grotesque and stomach-turning, and if it wasn't for his powers, very much fatal.

Both Missy and Dennis turned away. "Nothing," they said almost in unison. Their anger and resentment and a whole host of negative emotions were still swirling around them like circling sharks, but they'd shrunk down to more manageable levels.

"Alright," Dean said into the silence that followed, trying to project the image of calm and control that he thought a leader ought. "Let's get back on track."

For a moment, another silence persisted. Browbeat radiated hesitation and Carlos looked between them all, very obviously confused. Finally, at last, Dennis broke it.

"Regent," he said quietly. "The renfaire guy. His scepter's got a taser built into it."

"Good," Dean said. "Alright, good. That's good."

He wrote it down in Regent's column. He pretended that he couldn't see the feelings still orbiting Missy and Dennis, tamped down, but there all the same.

"Okay. What else?"

They went around for another several minutes, haltingly and slowly. They never did pick back up the pace that they'd started out with, and it took them probably twice as long as it should have, but they did, in the end, manage to fill out the Undersiders' columns — at least as much as they were able, anyway. Tattletale's was still basically a gigantic blank.

Every monitor in the room suddenly flashed yellow, and a grating alarm sounded — the notification system to let the Wards know that someone was going to be coming in, soon, and they had thirty seconds to prepare. They all scrambled to put on their masks, and Carlos had to grab one of the cheap, spare masks that was lying around for just such a reason.

A few moments after Dean had gotten his helmet back on, the entrance whirred open, and in stepped Armsmaster, with Miss Militia and Panacea behind him.

"Armsmaster," said Dean respectfully. "Good to see you, Sir. You as well, Miss Militia."

"Your manners are as refreshing as always, Gallant," said Miss Militia, eyes crinkling in a smile. She stepped aside to let Panacea through. "We brought a guest you might be familiar with."

The Amy Dallon who entered the Wards area was a jumbled mess of frustration and anxiety, with undercurrents of confusion, curiosity, and anticipation of the sort Gallant might expect from a young girl on Christmas Eve, waiting to unwrap her presents, or a scientist on the verge of discovery, impatient to get back to the lab and do her tests. It was…a little different from how he was used to seeing her.

Ah, but _there_ was the flash of jealousy and resentment when she laid eyes on him.

"She was kind enough to volunteer to come and patch up your wounds," Miss Militia explained. "Can't let you go home with horrible injuries and looking like you went a round with Alexandria, can we? It'd give away the show."

"It's the least I could do, as thanks for you guys rescuing me," said Panacea.

"You two are okay?" Gallant asked. It was more a formality than anything, because neither of them had been hurt, but Dean wouldn't be Gallant if he wasn't…well, gallant.

"Fine," Panacea told him. "I wasn't really part of the fighting, and Glory Girl didn't really get the chance to do much herself, so neither of us was actually injured."

"Good."

Gallant turned around to watch Armsmaster, who had gone up to examine the whiteboards. "I like this," he said. "This is good. But this one…" He tapped at Tattletale's column. "Nearly empty."

"None of us ran into her," Gallant explained. "And the hostages couldn't offer anything substantial."

"What about the mystery girl?" Browbeat piped up.

Everyone turned to look at him.

"Mystery girl?" asked Armsmaster.

"Well, yeah," said Browbeat. "Panacea's here, now, and she's the one who saw her, so…"

Something swirled in Panacea, and it was there and gone so fast that Gallant almost missed it. "I'm…not sure I know what you're talking about."

"The one who was fighting Glory Girl," Browbeat clarified.

"You mean _Taylor_?" asked Panacea.

At once, both Miss Militia and Armsmaster stiffened. Gallant saw what he could only describe as alarm quickly consume both of them, and they shared a look with each other that he couldn't quite decipher.

Something was up, he realized. What was so special about this girl that two Protectorate heroes apparently knew her by _name_?

"She's the one Tattletale held at gunpoint, right?" Browbeat went on, oblivious to the adults' reactions.

"Um. Well, yeah…"

"This girl," Armsmaster began, drawing everyone's attention back to him. "This Taylor. About five-ten? Lean, thin, with long, very wavy dark hair? Wears glasses?"

Surprise rippled through Amy, and Gallant saw her blink, astonished. A strange feeling of foreboding kindled inside him, but he had no idea what it meant.

"Um, yes, actually," said Panacea.

Armsmaster and Miss Militia both shared another look, Miss Militia's brow drawn tight and Armsmaster's mouth pulled into a thin line. He turned back to Panacea, again.

"And did she say what she was doing at the bank?"

"She said she was depositing some cash her friend gave her," Panacea answered. "Said her friend had some luck at a casino and gave her some of the winnings."

Armsmaster's lips twitched as though he'd just caught on to some kind of joke, but any sign that he might have started to smile was gone an instant later. The flash of amusement was there and gone so quickly that Gallant was almost sure he'd imagined it.

"How did she react when the Undersiders showed up?"

"She had a panic attack," Panacea told him. "Froze up. She was hyperventilating so bad she nearly blacked out. Almost broke my hand from how hard she was gripping it."

The two heroes exchanged another look, this one something that Gallant couldn't quite figure out. Not…confusion, exactly, but…

"She was holding your hand?" asked Miss Militia.

"We were sitting next to each other," Panacea explained. "We, uh, kind of got to talking while we were waiting for the line to thin out. She grabbed my hand when Grue covered the lobby in darkness."

"And what happened afterwards? There was something about Tattletale holding her at gunpoint?"

Panacea nodded.

"Um, yes. Tattletale, uh, came back while Grue and…Hellhound? They called her Bitch. Tattletale came back while Grue and Hellhound were loading up in the vault, said she had some business of her own to handle and she needed an 'assistant.' She picked Taylor, then forced her down the hall and into one of the offices. I don't know what she had her do, in there."

Miss Militia hummed thoughtfully.

"And how did this lead to her fighting Glory Girl?" she asked.

"Well, uh, once the fighting started, I…kind of got out of the way and picked up a fire extinguisher to defend myself with," Panacea said a little sheepishly. "Um, since I couldn't find anything else. When I heard Tattletale coming back down the hallway, I hid around the corner and waited for her to pass by."

"And you tried to hit her with the fire extinguisher," Miss Militia concluded.

"I tried to hit her with the fire extinguisher," Amy agreed. "But, um, Taylor was right next to her or something and disarmed me, put me in one of those submission holds. She said she reacted without thinking when she saw the fire extinguisher, and she was about to let me go when, well, when Glory Girl…jumped to conclusions."

"That's when Glory Girl broke her arm?"

"Not, um, not exactly, no," said Amy. "Vicky tried, several times, to…to knock her out, I guess, but Taylor just kinda…dodged all of them."

Gallant watched the surprise ripple through both adults. Armsmaster leaned forward a little with clear interest.

What was so _special_ about this girl?

"She _dodged_ Glory Girl?"

"Yeah." Amy nodded. "Quite, um, quite expertly, too. I thought she must practice some kind of martial arts to be that good, although it didn't look anything like what they show in the movies."

There was a thready undercurrent of guilt that Gallant watched snake its way through her aura, and he felt his lips pull into a frown as he realized what it meant: she was lying. Or at the very least, she wasn't saying everything.

"How did she break her arm, then?"

"They traded punches," was Amy's answer. "I…don't know _why_ Taylor tried to punch Glory Girl, but she did, and Glory Girl wasn't holding back maybe as much as she should have. Taylor's arm broke when they hit each other's fist."

Armsmaster and Miss Militia traded another look, this one grim and serious, and then Armsmaster gave a nod and said, "I'll inform the Director."

"I'll stay here and see Miss Dallon out," said Miss Militia.

Armsmaster gave her another nod, then swept a glance around at the gathered Wards, and left. The door opened, then whirred shut behind him.

"What was _that_ about?" Dennis asked.

"I'm sorry," Miss Militia told him, "but I'm afraid it's not something we can discuss with you Wards, just yet. The situation is too sensitive to bring you in on it. Most of the _Protectorate_ hasn't been brought in on the fine details."

She offered them a smile. Gallant could only pay attention to the swirl of dread, sadness, and shame that clung close to her like dew on a cool morning.

"Now," she said, changing the subject, "why don't we get all of you patched up? Amy, if you would, please?"

Panacea hesitated for a moment, then she stepped forward and offered everyone her own smile. "So, who needs it most? Aegis?"

"I'll live," Carlos grunted. "I can go last."

After a moment, Gallant raised his hand. "I got slammed by one of Hellhound's dogs. Paramedics cleared me, but I think I might have a broken rib, and I want to be sure."

Panacea looked at him and frowned, then she gestured to the far end of the room, where they'd have some privacy. "I'll take a look at you over there?"

Dennis laughed and gave them a grin. "Of course, Glory Girl's _boyfriend_ gets the special treatment, right?"

Gallant didn't bother saying anything; he just shot a smirk back at Dennis.

Gallant and Panacea walked over, and Panacea sat him down on the bed (so she had an easier time checking him over, probably), then set her hand on his shoulder. A moment later, her brow furrowed.

"No broken rib," she announced. "It's barely more than a hairline fracture, really, but you're not even in that much pain. Why would you—"

"I lied," Gallant admitted shamelessly. "I just wanted an excuse so I could talk to you, alone."

He reached out to grab her hand, but a sour burst of anger-disgust-frustration flared through her aura and she snatched her hand away, then folded both beneath her armpits so that he couldn't try again. He should have expected that.

"You know sensing emotions is part of my powers," he said, undaunted. "It's not something I can turn off, either, so I always see how people are feeling around me."

"Victoria's mentioned it, yes," Amy replied coolly.

"So you probably already know what I see whenever Victoria and I are together," he went on. "I've been meaning to talk to you about it, actually, but I didn't want to discuss it when she was nearby. And I could never really find a good moment to broach the subject, but…"

Amy's voice was flat, unimpressed. "What?"

"Are…you okay?" he asked. "With us, I mean. Victoria and I. I know you have some rather strong feelings about me, and if it's something you're comfortable with talking about, I'd be happy to —"

"No," she cut him off harshly. "No, I don't want to talk about it."

"I'm sorry," he hurried to say. "I know it's a difficult subject, and maybe I shouldn't have brought it up —"

"No," she interjected again, "you really shouldn't have."

She turned and started to walk away, but Gallant reached out and grabbed her shoulder, first.

Backing down was how he'd lost Sophia. He'd let her drive him off, and he hadn't been persistent enough to get her to open up. He wasn't going to make that mistake again.

"Amy," he said sincerely. "Amy, look. I know that's not the only thing bothering you, either. You've got stuff on your mind, stuff I don't think you've talked to anyone about, and maybe it's stuff you don't want to talk to _me_ about, but if you do… If you do, I'm always willing to listen. My door will always be open. Just…keep that in mind?"

He wasn't sure he'd gotten through to her — just like he'd never gotten through to Sophia — and he worried, maybe, in his efforts to head off another person dying who he could have helped, if he hadn't pushed a little too hard.

"…Okay."

Thankfully, however, it seemed he hadn't.

Gallant gave her a nod she couldn't see and let go of her shoulder, but her hand came up lightning fast and took his. She held it for a moment, and as she did, Gallant felt something inside his chest shift and the aches and pains left over from the fight with the Undersiders disappear. A few seconds later, they were all gone, and Amy let go of his hand, again.

"There," she said quietly. "That takes care of those bruises and that fractured rib. You're all fixed up."

"Thanks," he told her sincerely.

She started to take another step and go to rejoin the group, but she hesitated and turned her head to look back at him from over her shoulder.

"Take care of Vicky, okay?" There was something… strange in her voice. A dark pattern of sadness-resignation-longing swam around her head. "Make her happy?"

Dean gave her his most solemn, honest smile. He hoped it was befitting of the name he'd chosen, the image he'd been trying to live up to.

"Of course I will."

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

 **There it goes. The last time I borrow from canon until Legend's speech at the Leviathan fight.**

 **In truth, I borrowed a bit more than I wanted to, and I'm pretty sure I've said that several times, now. But, this is a bonus interlude, and I wanted to explore how the Wards are reacting to Shadow Stalker's death and get into Gallant's head, a little.**

 **Next chapter is the beginning of arc 4. No Pendulum, this arc.**

 **As always, read, review, and enjoy.**

 **And for early access to chapters and bonus content:**

 **p a treon . com (slash) James_D_Fawkes**


	25. Collateral 4-1

**Collateral 4.1**

"…This has got to be way too expensive."

Lisa shrugged.

"Maybe. Depends on what your spending money looks like. Me, I haven't got much else to use it on, and there's only so many clothes a girl can buy before it just gets excessive. Besides…"

She offered me a sheepish smile. "I figure it's the least I can do, after how badly I screwed up."

I frowned and looked down at the smartphone in my hand. The latest model, unless I was mistaken. It probably had more tricks and subtle uses than I knew what to do with, and if I was being entirely honest, I'd probably never use it for anything other than making phone calls. Hell, the only person I could think I'd be using it _for_ would be Lisa, and maybe Amy.

"Still…"

"It's probably better this way, too," she added. "It'll probably throw Coil off if _I'm_ the one footing the bill. Doesn't leave any paperwork that leads back to you and your dad."

A good point, I had to admit. The longer it took Coil to start looking at me or Dad, the happier I would be. Lisa had said as much yesterday, that Coil had no scruples about going after family or jumping straight to assassination. A Bond villain, that was the term she'd used. A megalomaniac with delusions of grandeur and a willingness and ruthlessness to do whatever it took to get what he wanted.

Escaping his attention as Apocrypha was basically impossible, now. Not after Lung. Not after that thread on PHO singing my praises (and still going strong days later). But keeping him from making the connection between Apocrypha and Taylor Hebert? The longer I could manage that, the better. No matter how I felt about Lisa, right now, I could be grateful for that kind of consideration, at least.

The phone itself… I was still a bit iffy on that front. Probably always would be. I'd just have to deal with it.

"Listen," said Lisa, leaning forward a little. "I really am sorry."

My head jerked up and I glared at her sharply.

"Are you?"

She winced. "Okay, I deserved that," she admitted. "I know. I fucked the whole thing up badly. I really _didn't_ mean to hurt you or anything, but…fuck, I couldn't think of a better way to handle it."

"I can think of half a dozen," I told her darkly.

"Okay, I deserved _that_ , too," she said. "But I really didn't… Fuck, Taylor, I was trying to show you what the Boss forced me into. It was a lot easier to _show_ you than to try and explain it all. Maybe I should have tried explaining it first," she added. "But it seemed simpler to do it the way I did. Less room for doubt."

"Less chance for me to say no," I interjected.

Lisa grimaced, worked her jaw a little, and reached up to rub at a spot on her chest just a few inches under her left shoulder — her heart, I realized. She was rubbing at her heart, where the geis bound her.

"Yes," she admitted at length. "Less chance for you to say no. I didn't want to hurt you, but I didn't want to take any chances, either."

I scowled and reached down to grab my mug, then took a long sip of my tea. It didn't taste quite as good as it had just a few days ago.

Lisa's regret was genuine, her friendship was genuine, and her reluctance to hurt me was genuine, but so was her willingness to manipulate me to get free of Coil. I couldn't say I didn't understand the motivation, but that didn't mean I had to like it, either. Not when I was the one being manipulated.

Eventually, I'd probably forgive her. Eventually, I'd probably release her from this geis and be able to trust her again without it. Not now, though. Probably not anytime soon.

"I'm sorry," she said again.

"I know," I replied.

At least she hadn't turned on me for no apparent reason, spent two years doing her best to make my life hell, shoved me into a locker filled with used tampons, or… Yeah, Emma was a bad comparison to make, wasn't she?

On that note, I reached into my pocket, wrapped my fingers around the contents, then pulled it out and set it on the table.

"Here," I said, shoving it over to her.

Lisa picked up the necklace, a small thing of gold with a thin chain, and inspected the little pendant that dangled from it. It was nothing complex or particularly ornate, because I'd only had about a day to work on it, but it'd get the job done.

"What's this?" she asked me.

"A good luck charm, of sorts," I explained. "Should block bullets, just in case Coil decides to cut his losses."

Lisa blinked and looked at it dubiously. "This?"

"I only had a day to work on it," I said a little defensively. "I know it doesn't _look_ like much, but I wouldn't bother if it didn't do what I said it will."

I reached down the neck of my hoodie and pulled out a similar, but much larger, pendant hanging from a sturdier chain. Mine, unlike Lisa's, had a purple gemstone on the front and was marked with a rune of protection.

If there was one thing I had to thank this whole fiasco for, it was forcing me to stop experimenting and just finish these. I'd started mine several weeks ago, but I'd spent a lot of time and effort just messing around and seeing what I could do. Now that there was a very real threat to my life in the form of Coil and his mercenaries, having a charm that blocked bullets seemed a whole lot more important than finding out whether I could also use it to turn myself invisible or give myself x-ray vision.

"I know you didn't _buy_ this," Lisa said. "It doesn't have any markings to denote the jeweler, for one thing. How did you make it?"

"Alchemy," I answered shortly. "Transmuted a few things."

"Like what?"

"Whatever I had lying around."

Lisa blinked, stared at me for a moment, and then she started laughing. "No way!" she said. "A few paperclips and some spare change? Into _this_?"

I felt my cheeks flush a little. "It's what I had on hand. It's not like I had a lead pipe or something just sitting in the basement."

"No, no, I'm not criticizing or anything," she assured me. "Just…wow." She went back to inspecting the pendant. "Most precious metal on the planet, most _Tinkers_ would have trouble synthesizing even small amounts of it, and you can make some from a few paperclips and a quarter or two."

She laughed again.

"Your powers are _such_ bullshit."

I felt, it seemed to me, irrationally pleased at her praise. I was supposed to be angry at her, though. Upset at her betrayal. Not happy that she was praising my work.

"Anyway," I said. "It's a rush job, and I haven't exactly tested yours or mine, but it should block most bullets. I…don't know if it'll block anything else, but it might work on lasers and stuff, too."

Lisa looked back at me and started to put the pendant on. "Lasers?" she asked.

"Anything that's 'fired,'" I clarified.

"That's pretty broad." Once the clasp was fastened, she pulled her hair up and out of the way of the chain so that it rested against her neck. Then, she looked down and fidgeted with the pendant until it rested just beneath the notch at the base of her throat. "Bullets, lasers, missiles…"

"Ah," I said, "probably not _missiles_ …"

Lisa blinked. "Not missiles?"

"Missiles have an area of effect," I explained. "They're not hitting _you_ , exactly, so the pendant can't block them."

Lisa looked down at her new pendant again. "Holy shit, really? So, as long as it's a projectile that's fired and it doesn't have an area of effect like a missile, this little thing will protect me from it?"

"It should."

"Damn." Lisa grinned. "If you started handing these out to the police or the PRT, they'd bend over backwards to keep you on their side."

I grimaced and looked away. Yeah, they would have, wouldn't they? Maybe it wouldn't have been a bad idea, and it certainly would have made me quite a bit of money, but I still wasn't feeling very charitable about the PRT, right then.

"Oh. Right. Yeah. Sorry. Didn't mean to bring up a sore subject."

"It's fine," I said, even though it really wasn't.

I still wanted to know. Had they known and left me to suffer? Had they not, and Sophia was pulling the wool over their eyes? No matter which one it was, I wasn't sure I could forgive them for it.

"Anyway," said Lisa, "let's talk about something else."

An awkward silence fell between us and persisted for several long moments. In the background, I could hear the distant sounds of tea and coffee being brewed and the low, quiet chatter of a few of the other guests who were seated at the other tables.

"So," I said, for lack of anything else to say, "your teammates…"

Lisa snorted. "Are currently pissed at me," she told me. "I was wrong about a lot of things, yesterday, and Grue in particular has been chewing my ear off about it. I've been hearing it for miscalculating the Wards' arrival time and missing Panacea in the crowd so much that I could probably recite it all in my sleep, by now."

The vindictive part of me found that inordinately satisfying, that she was suffering for her bad decisions, after the betrayal. The part of me that cherished the friendship we'd made over the past week, the part of me that longed for that friendship and didn't want to let it go no matter what, sympathized.

It probably said something to her desperation that she'd gone ahead, even when it had turned out the way it did, even when it had risked turning me against her forever. I still wanted to be angry about it, but it was becoming a little harder as I realized more and more just how desperate she really was.

That didn't mean everything was okay, though. There was a…a distance, now, between us. A gap, a wall. I didn't know if it would ever be fixed. I still didn't know if I wanted it to be.

"Oh," I said lamely. "And…none of them are willing to…"

"No," Lisa replied simply. "Like I said yesterday, Coil gives each of them something they want. Grue gets help with getting his little sister away from his druggy mother, Bitch gets the money and the space to feed and care for her dogs, and Regent gets the freedom to do whatever he wants. None of them would want to give that up just for me."

She leaned forward. "It's all about points of control, see. As long as he seems like their best, or even only, option and doesn't do anything to break their faith, none of them is gonna risk losing what he gives them. And if they _do_ decide, hey, maybe some of this shit doesn't smell that great, he can twist it around to leverage them back to his side — Grue's sister becomes a hostage, Bitch's dogs are threatened, and Coil tells Regent that maybe he'll let slip to Regent's twisted, messed up family where he is and how to find him.

"That's the game he likes to play," she went on. "He'll start with the carrot, tell you he can give you what you want, tell you he can make your life easier. For you, for example, he'd probably promise he could get you a good lawyer to sue Winslow, promise he'd pay for the whole thing, if only you worked for him. If that didn't work, he'd probably move onto something like getting the Dockworkers employed on a major construction project."

I could see that sort of thing working on me with frightening ease. How tempting would it have been, if I'd had an anonymous benefactor promising to take care of all my problems at school, if only I agreed to do a few jobs for him? After listening for what seemed like my whole life to my dad venting about the dearth of jobs for his people, for the Dockworkers, how easily would I have caved if that same benefactor promised to make my dad's life easier?

Too easily. If I'd gotten a different power, if I'd gotten something that was darker, less heroic, something that didn't scream, "hero!" in every way, all it might have taken was a little nudge. Less, if I'd found out about Sophia beforehand.

"If that didn't work and he wanted you _really_ badly," Lisa said, "he'd start with the threats. Like, wouldn't it be terrible if something were to happen to your dad? Wouldn't it be just awful if he got mugged on the way home and things just went wrong? If he were to be caught up in a shootout between the ABB and the E88? And nothing like that would _ever_ happen if you just decided to work for him. In fact, he'd _guarantee_ that nothing like that would happen if you worked for him."

I swallowed thickly.

And if the promises of fixing all of my problems, fixing all of dad's problems, hadn't done it, _that_ certainly would have.

"That…"

She gave me a grim smile. "Yeah. Of course, once he got his claws in you, he'd string you along, just to keep you in his pocket. The lawyer would take weeks or months to find, and he'd tell you it was because he wanted the very best, and once he _did_ get a lawyer, the case would move at a glacial pace — the paperwork, he'd say. These things take a lot of time, because the bureaucracy is slow. He'd make it sound so _reasonable_."

It didn't sound like it right then, but I could imagine it would if I hadn't had Lisa to warn me off, to tell me exactly what kind of scumbag he was. The me from back in January would likely have been easily fooled, so desperate had I been to just have someone on _my_ side.

"And when at last his promises finally came true, you'd decide to stay," Lisa concluded. "Out of gratitude, and because the money was good and the jobs weren't that bad. That's why he's Coil; once he's got you, he slowly and steadily tightens his grasp until you don't even _want_ to escape."

After a moment, she leaned back in her chair and sighed. "Sorry. I started talking about some really heavy stuff, again."

"No," I said. "No. I, uh. I asked."

At that moment, I heard the bell at the door jingle, and after glancing at my watch to check the time — three-oh-three pm — I twisted around in my chair to look back. There, at the front of the shop, was a short, mousy girl with a familiar tangle of brown curls, and her head swiveled as she looked around the shop.

I thought about waving, but as her head turned around again, Amy's eyes locked with mine, and she started back in our direction. Absently, I noted what looked like a backpack slung over one shoulder, so she'd probably come here directly from school.

"Hi," Amy mumbled when she reached our table.

"Hi, Amy," I replied, and then I turned back to Lisa, who looked as though she'd been slapped in the face with a fish.

Maybe it was a bit petty, to think of it as revenge for all of the surprises she'd dropped in _my_ lap yesterday, but I could take some pleasure in the absolutely gobsmacked expression on her face.

"Amy, this is Lisa," I introduced. "Lisa, this is Amy."

"Um, hi," said Amy, a little shyly. Yeah, I'd kinda just dropped this on _her_ , too, hadn't I?

Lisa just sighed.

"I deserve this," she muttered, almost as though she was trying to convince herself. "I know I deserve this. I _know_ I do. But fuck, I wish I didn't."

"Um, okay," said Amy, sounding affronted.

Lisa turned to Amy and plastered on a smile. "Hi, Amy. I'd say it's nice to meet you, but this particular little surprise is one that Taylor here decided to drop on both of us, and I'm pretty sure I'm the only one who's actually done anything to deserve it."

Amy shifted.

"Deserve…?" her brow furrowed and she stared at Lisa, scrutinizing her. "Wait a minute. Hold on. I recognize that voice — you're Tattletale!"

"Guilty as charged," said Lisa, grinning her trademark grin.

Amy whipped around to stare at me, now. Betrayal and anger were written on her face, and under the black bags that circled her eyes, splotches of red were beginning to fill her cheeks.

"You _lied_ to me," she accused. "You _are_ with them. Vicky was right — you _are_ a villain —"

She was making to leave, starting to back away and turn towards the door, but I reached out, quick as lightning, and snagged one wrist.

"Let go of me!" she hissed, snarling. "I'm going to call Vicky — you _were_ helping them escape —"

"Amy," I cut her off, "I wasn't lying."

"She really wasn't!" Lisa added unhelpfully.

"I said that it's complicated," I went on, ignoring Lisa. "I said that it had something to do with my powers. I asked you to give me a chance to explain. Will you?"

I could see the war play out on Amy's face, and for several long moments, I waited for her to make her decision. I wasn't really sure myself what she'd choose, whether she'd really give me a chance to explain everything, and to be honest, if I had been in her position, I probably would have just left.

But Amy scowled, jerked her arm free, then walked around to sit on my other side — next to me, rather than Lisa, who she was still regarding with barely concealed hostility. Her bag slid off her shoulder and was dropped unceremoniously to the floor, where it landed with a heavy thump.

"Five minutes," she promised sourly. "Then I'm gone and calling Vicky."

For a few seconds, we sat there in silence, then I shot Lisa a meaningful look. Luckily, she seemed to understand.

"Guess I get to kick us off, then," she said. "Okay. So, it starts out like this…"

She launched into an abbreviated version of the story she told me, about being on her own, about pickpocketing rich guys just to scrape by, about being pulled aside and being given an ultimatum by a mysterious voice on the other end of a telephone. She skipped over several points, and I noticed especially that she made no mention of her Trigger Event, but she covered all of the important parts.

"…and trust me, his retirement plan _sucks_ ," said Lisa. "No medical, no dental, and the death benefits don't even include a proper burial."

"I thought Coil was small time," murmured Amy. "Hell, as far as I know, the PRT isn't even sure he _has_ powers."

Lisa snorted. "That's part of his plan. The longer he goes without notice, that's the more time he has to build up his base and line up all his ducks. He _likes_ having everyone underestimate him. It means he gets to sit back while the other gangs tear each other to pieces, then he can swoop in and finish off whatever's left when the time is right."

Amy chewed on her bottom lip, then turned to me. "And what does all of this have to do with you?"

"I made Lisa a promise, yesterday," I said. "At the bank, when she took me to the back offices and explained all of this. I said I'd help her escape from Coil."

"And since Coil has moles and influence in the PRT, that meant helping me escape from the bank," Lisa added.

"A _promise_?" Amy asked incredulously. "That's it? You fought Vicky over a _promise_?"

"Hey, now, it's not that simple," said Lisa. "You ever read the Harry Potter books?"

Amy blinked. "Yes," she replied impatiently, "and?"

"The Aleph versions?"

"Yes."

"Remember at the beginning of the sixth book," asked Lisa, "when Snape makes that Unbreakable Vow?"

A considering look began to dawn on Amy's face, like she wasn't sure where this was going but she might have an idea. "Yes."

"That's what Taylor did," said Lisa. "She and I exchanged an Unbreakable Vow, of a sorts. I promised never to betray her trust again, and she promised to help me escape Coil."

Amy's brow furrowed. "And what happens if you break it? You die?"

"No," I said quickly. "Nothing that extreme."

Lisa laughed.

"Nothing that extreme, she says." She grinned that grin again. "No, Amy, breaking it won't kill either of us. What it _will_ do is strip the guilty one of her powers. That's what it does in the legends, right, Taylor?"

"That's how a geis works, yes," I answered. "When they're broken, the one who broke them loses his supernatural strength and abilities."

I wasn't quite sure it had the same effect on, well, parahuman powers, but it stood to reason it would. There wasn't a really good way to test it, though.

Amy had a strange, complicated look on her face. "Just like that?" There was something like consideration in her voice, a kind of longing. "Make a vow, and if you break it, you lose your powers for good? It doesn't hurt you or kill you?"

"No."

"Then I —"

"Whoa, now," Lisa interjected. "That's not all there is to it. Sure, the geis itself won't kill you for breaking it, but that isn't how all of those legends ended, is it? All of those heroes who broke their geises —"

"Geasa," I corrected.

"Geasa," Lisa continued smoothly, "died tragically afterwards. The geis itself didn't kill them, but all of the misfortune that they suffered came from breaking the geis."

I shot her a look and she shrugged, grinning at me. "I didn't have much else to do last night, so instead of listening to Grue chew me out for the hundredth time, I did some research."

"That sounds a lot like superstition," said Amy doubtfully.

"Maybe it is," Lisa replied. "But while I'm pretty sure breaking the geis wouldn't kill me _immediately_ , I wouldn't put it past it for a bus to run me over or a stray bullet to take me out while I'm walking down the street — probably, if it's all true to form, three to nine days afterwards."

That…was an oddly specific timeframe. When I looked back in her direction again, Lisa gave me another shrug. "The Celts and their obsession with the number three," she said, as though that explained it.

It…didn't, really. That wasn't how those myths tended to work.

"O…kay," said Amy. She looked a little lost. "I'm not sure… _What_ does this have to do with your power?"

I opened my mouth to answer, but Lisa beat me to it.

"Haven't you realized?" she asked. "Then again, I guess the PRT and the Protectorate are keeping it a pretty closely guarded secret, so it makes sense that you wouldn't know. I know there's been some speculation on PHO, though."

"Know…what?"

Lisa grinned broadly. "Have you heard about that new hero that PHO has been flipping out about for the past few days? The one that beat down Lung all by herself and left him, you might say, _half_ the man he used to be?" She gestured towards me. "She's sitting right next to you."

I felt my cheeks warm and a looked away, shifting uncomfortably in my seat.

"Wait, what?" Amy turned to me, surprise written across her face. "You're _Apocrypha_? _That_ Apocrypha? Seriously?"

"Yeah," I said awkwardly.

Before, with Armsmaster and Miss Militia, it'd felt great to receive that praise, that adulation. Now that the rush of it had worn off, it felt…strange. Like that A+ in second grade math that your parents wouldn't shut up about, even six years later. Maybe a little undeserved, too, which was really crazy and really stupid if I thought about it. I mean, I'd beaten _Lung_ , didn't I deserve to feel good about that?

Except the glow had worn off and it felt like a footnote amongst all the other crazy shit that had started happening the past few days.

"But I thought," she started, then she winced, looked around — checking to make sure no one had heard her, I guessed — and continued, "but I thought your powers were just a minor Brute and Mover combo! How did you… I mean, I _healed_ him, that night. There's _no way_ you could've done _that_ to him like you are _now_!"

"Same way she could turn a simple handshake into a binding magical oath," Lisa answered for me again. I scowled. That was really starting to get annoying. "Her power lets her access the skills, abilities, and equipment of heroes from myth and legend. Guys like Beowulf, King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, Hercules, Siegfried… The geis was Cúchulainn, right?"

"Aífe," I corrected. "She's where the martial arts come from, too. They're the techniques that were taught to the heroes from the Ulster cycle."

Amy looked like she was having trouble wrapping her head around what she was hearing. "So," she started, "just by using your powers, you get a Brute and Mover power and the ability to make special, magical oaths that people can't break unless they want to lose their powers?"

"And probably die," Lisa added with a levity and humor that seemed ill-fitting to the situation. "I feel like I have to make sure that's clear."

"I mean, I guess?" I hedged, ignoring Lisa entirely.

I still didn't have an answer myself. I had a feeling that the answer probably _was_ Aífe and her martial arts — a gut instinct, rather than a rational, well-reasoned logic — but I had no way of _really_ knowing. I hadn't even _noticed_ the stuff Amy had been talking about. I hadn't felt any stronger or faster than normal in my day to day life. No glasses broken from accidentally gripping them too hard. No suddenly keeping pace with moving cars. I hadn't been doing anything blatantly superhuman since I first started learning with Aífe's Noble Phantasm.

I hadn't even noticed while fighting Glory Girl. It'd felt like I was moving at normal speeds and just going through the motions of those techniques. Nothing special or extraordinary. Nothing anyone else wouldn't have been able to do, if they'd been learning what I was.

Except apparently it was.

Amy stared at me for a long moment, as though waiting for me to throw up my hands and shout, "Gotcha!"

But when I didn't, her brow furrowed.

"Do you not realize how ridiculous this sounds?" Amy asked. "Magical oaths that can take away your powers if you break them, getting superstrength and superspeed as a _side effect_ of using your main power, learning martial arts from a _mythological heroine_ — that's not the real world, that's the plot of a crappy, sixties comic book!"

It…really kind of did, I had to admit. If I looked at it that way, it seemed like the sort of thing I might find in some of Dad's old _X-Men_ comics that he had stowed away, collecting dust, in the basement. It probably said something about how strange my life had become in the past few months that comparing it to the height of comic book absurdity wasn't a completely silly idea.

But…

"Thirty years ago," Lisa told her, face flat and serious, "a naked, golden man popped up out of thin air, flying around like gravity was nothing more than a suggestion. Since then, people have been showing up who can do some pretty incredible things. Tinkers, who can build stuff straight out of the hardest of hard sci-fi. Breakers, who can say 'fuck you' to the laws of physics. A man in spandex who can shoot lasers that do things lasers shouldn't be able to do. Asian warlords who can turn into dragons. Teenage girls who can bench press a tractor trailer or manipulate any form of biology she can get her hands on."

Calmly, casually, she took a sip of her coffee.

"We talk about parahumans and their powers as though there _must_ be a scientific explanation," she went on. "We haven't _found_ one. After thirty years, we're no closer to being able to answer how powers work or where they come from than we were when they first showed up. The only reason we don't call them magic is because no one believes in it anymore, even though, for all intents and purposes, that's what it is. Can you really say what is and isn't possible with them?"

For another long moment, Amy stared at Lisa intently, unblinking, and I thought she was going to try and respond, but then she shook her head disgustedly and started to stand, hefting her bag up over her shoulders.

"Whatever," she said, turning to me, now. "If you feel like _actually_ explaining this stuff to me instead of…whatever this was supposed to be, let me know. Until then, I'm out of here."

She started to leave, but my hand shot out and snagged her wrist as she passed by me.

"Amy," I said when her head swiveled back my direction, "don't tell anyone? About the promise and about Lisa?"

Her brow furrowed.

"If I don't promise," she said sarcastically, "are you gonna make _me_ swear one of those magical geises of yours, too?"

"No," I replied simply. "Those are only for people I can't trust."

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Lisa wince, and I felt a little vindictive thrill at it. In front of me, Amy blinked for a moment, surprised. "Oh," she said. Then, she frowned and let out a sigh through her nostrils. "Fine. I promise I won't tell anyone about any of this stuff. Okay?"

"Thank you."

I let her wrist go — as I'd said, no geis.

For a few seconds, Amy hesitated, looking like she was going to sit back down, and there was something strange in her expression. Then, she scowled, turned away, and left. I watched her go silently, wondering how I could have handled that better, how I could have managed that in a way that would have ended better, but I couldn't think of anything.

Maybe if I'd actually done the explaining myself? But Lisa had done a much better job of it than I imagined I ever could. If it'd been me, I'd have messed the whole thing up even worse.

Not for the first time, I thought of Emma, and I hated her for how she'd ruined me. It seemed that, even when she wasn't present, she sabotaged every friendship I tried to start.

And there wasn't anything I could do about it.

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

 **When you think about it, Taylor's powers really _do_ sound a lot like bullshit, don't they?**

 **Onto the news: not that I didn't expect it from the get-go, but continuing Essence won the poll by a wide margin. Trailing at a much distant second was starting Recursive Wisdom, which I did _not_ expect. I honestly expected Project: Nietzsche to occupy that role. **

**With that in mind, I'm going to try and blitz through another 40k words for Essence and get at least four chapters of Recursive Wisdom done before December. No idea how successful I'll be. As a result, depending on where I am by Wednesday, I _may_ set us to an every other week schedule for the duration - one chapter this week, one chapter two weeks from now, and back to normal in December. I'll let everyone know what I decide by Thursday at the latest.**

 **As always, read, review, and enjoy.**

 **And for early access to chapters and bonus content:**

 **p a treon . com (slash) James_D_Fawkes**


	26. Collateral 4-2

**Collateral 4.2**

For a long moment, I watched the door Amy had left through, hating myself for screwing things up so badly that she'd gone, hating Emma for destroying my ability to make friends — that, even when she'd never met Amy and probably never would, she'd managed to drive her off without even being there.

It wasn't devastating. It didn't hurt anywhere near as bad as seeing Lisa at the bank had. It was just a missed opportunity, a friendship that maybe I'd been hoping for a little more than I'd ever realized, and that I'd missed that chance stung.

"She'll be back," Lisa assured me. I shifted in my seat and turned back around to her. "Probably not tomorrow. Maybe not even next week. But she'll be back."

I frowned. "How are you so sure?"

Lisa smiled, a sad little thing that made her look older and almost matronly. "She's like you," she said. "Only ever had one friend in her whole life — her sister, Glory Girl — and ever since she got her powers, she's had a hard time forming a meaningful, honest relationship with _anyone_. Most of the people she hangs around with are Vicky's friends, and just about everyone she meets wants this pimple gone or this scar removed or a few pounds taken off."

That _did_ sound a lot like me. Emma had been the only friend I'd ever had, the only person in my own age group I'd been anything more than acquaintances with, and ever since Emma had turned on me, ignoring how she'd sabotaged any attempts at friendship, I hadn't been able to connect with anyone else. Every girl at Winslow who wanted anything to do with me only wanted to use me to springboard into Emma's good graces.

Lisa shrugged. "Whether or not New Wave's accountability stance is right or wrong, when you can cure just about anything and you don't have a secret identity, it's hard to separate where you start and the mask ends. I'd imagine it gets to be that she's tired of having people ask her for touch-ups or quick fixes when all she wants to do is eat her lunch."

"Oh," I said.

I supposed that it did make sense, didn't it? That was the assumption Amy had made in the bank, yesterday, that I'd wanted her to, uh, _enhance_ me. In some ways, now that I knew she was Panacea, the idea _was_ a little tempting, to have her erase all of my flaws, but even if I asked and she actually _did_ it, Emma and her cronies would find a way to make fun of me for it.

That was part of the reason I hadn't bothered learning something like shapeshifting. There was also the fact that if I changed so drastically overnight into a supermodel, there were only so many explanations for it, and with our financial situation the way it was, me having powers was the most likely of the bunch. There were quicker, more satisfying ways of outing myself than that.

"That _does_ make me a little curious, though," said Lisa. She eyed me speculatively. "How _did_ you guys hit it off?"

It was my turn to shrug. "We just…talked. I mean, she was a little prickly, at first, and I, uh, might have…told her off for being a bitch?"

Lisa snorted.

"But we just started talking," I went on. "We…didn't really get much farther than introductions, but… I guess she liked me well enough?"

Not that I really knew _why_. I could kind of understand — in some ways, if what Lisa had said was true, Amy and I were in kind of similar situations — but it wasn't like we'd sat down and realized we had so much in common we could have been sisters. Hell, I didn't know much more than her _name_.

Lisa cringed. "Ah, right, that would be my fault, wouldn't it?"

"Yeah…"

It was honestly getting a bit annoying, having her apologizing all the time. There were only so many times I could hear her say it, even if she meant it every time, before it started to sound like an empty platitude, and when it seemed like every few sentences, she had to stop and apologize for some unintended consequence of yesterday's madness, it just started to feel like… I knew she was sorry. She didn't have to say it so often.

She cleared her throat. "Anyway. She's lonely, and however you did it, you got her to consider taking a chance. She's not going to give that up so easily."

I took a sip of my tea.

"If you say so."

It would probably be nice to have another friend, though. With Emma, with Lisa, I'd never had more than one, true friend in my entire life, only vague acquaintances. I wasn't even sure I knew _how_ to have more than one real friend at a time, but it would have been nice to try, all the same.

"So," said Lisa at length, "I know that's not why you asked me to come here, today. What did you have in mind?"

I glanced around and shook my head. "Not here," I told her quietly. "We'll talk at my…my _base_."

"You have a secret base?" she asked a little louder than I would have liked, grinning.

I shot her a glare and she winced.

"Oh, right. Sorry."

I took a look at my watch — a little after three-thirty — and drained the rest of my tea in several quick swallows. Across from me, Lisa did the same, and as we got up to leave, I saw her slip a five dollar tip beneath the aluminum tray. The bell jingled as we stepped out the front door.

"So," said Lisa, "where are we headed, Chief?"

"This way," I told her and started walking.

I led her through the Docks, skirting around the Boardwalk as we went until we reached the edge of the beach (for what little of one there was). From there, I took her south, the city to our right and the bay to our left, with the ultimate destination of a pier just a few blocks away from the southern ferry station.

"So," Lisa said conversationally as we went, "you read, right? Recreationally?"

"Yeah," I replied.

"Right, right, of course you do," she said. "Your mom was an…English teacher?"

"Literature professor."

"So _Dracula_ was, like, your bedtime story."

I snorted. "Not exactly." I had no idea how Mom would have explained some of the… _racier_ bits of it, if it had been. "But I did read it later on, yeah."

"Huh. And is he…Dracula, that is. Is he one of your… _heroes_?"

I thought about not answering, but there wasn't really anything to be gained or lost. Lisa couldn't betray me, and even if she could, it wasn't like I planned on making heavy use of _Vlad the Impaler_.

"After a fashion, I guess?" I hedged. "Not…Dracula, the character, but the story got appended to Vlad the Impaler's legend and it's an ability he can use…"

Honestly, I didn't understand how that whole thing worked, myself.

"Why do you ask?"

I glanced back in time to see her shrug.

"Well, we already covered the heavy stuff, so I figured, let's do the easier, less heavy stuff. You know, favorite books, movies we like, favorite color, that sort of thing. Me, for instance, I like mystery novels, even though my power ruins them."

"What?" I asked incredulously.

"Yeah," she said with a laugh. "My power makes it hard not to pick apart the ending before I'm halfway through, so I made a bit of a game of it. I take notes, write out the answers my powers give me, then go back and try to see how my powers got there. It's a fun little way of killing time, and you'd be surprised how good the Sherlock Holmes novels are at hiding their clues."

"Really?"

I didn't much read Sherlock. I preferred fantasy, like _The Lord of the Rings_ , and drowning myself in wondrous, magical worlds was part of how I'd coped, the last two years. They were places where Emma and her friends couldn't touch me, where I could be someone else, for a little while, where the dreariness of my life couldn't intrude.

"A lot of them are really only obvious after the fact," she answered. "Really easy to miss. That's part of the fun of picking them apart. So what about you, then? With a literature professor for a mom, you've probably read a lot of the classics. What's your favorite?"

"Tolkien."

Lisa laughed. "Of course."

"Rowling, I guess, or the Aleph versions, at least. I really liked C.S. Lewis as a kid, but Peter and Susan were my favorite characters, so I kind of stopped after they left the cast."

"Bo-ring!" she announced. "Come on, no Terry Pratchett or Neil Gaiman?"

"Some," I admitted. "I never got into them that much, though, it just wasn't quite the same. I'm not sure what it was, exactly, and maybe that was part of the problem…"

We made small talk the rest of the way, idly discussing fantasy books, then a little science fiction, some romance (Lisa was secretly a fan of trashy romances, who knew?), and before I knew it, we'd arrived at an old, dilapidated pier, left to sit in disrepair.

Once, Dad had told me it used to be a fishing spot, a place men took their sons to spend the day and bond, even though it was technically illegal to fish, there. Now, after the days of Marquis and with the gangs carving out territory in the city, with the Boat Graveyard clogging the bay and the ferry shut down — permanently, it seemed, because no matter how hard Dad tried, the city hadn't budged one inch to see it reopened — it had been abandoned to rot.

And rot it had, because the first time I'd come here about a month ago, the first time in nearly ten years I'd visited, one of the wooden planks had snapped in half under my weight. Others were missing entirely or warped from constant exposure to the water. Those that remained groaned with every step and threatened to break beneath our feet, and it was a combination of a miracle and a little subtle magic I had inflicted upon them ages ago that kept them from doing just that.

"We're here," I announced, turning around to face Lisa.

"What, really?" she asked. She looked around, head spinning as though on a swivel. "Huh. I mean, it's abandoned enough, so I guess no one would bother, but this is really open and I don't see… Oh, do you have an invisible mansion or something?"

I smiled a little tightly. "Something like that. Are we alone? No one's spying on us?"

Lisa frowned and looked around again, going slower this time. She seemed to be carefully examining every old and abandoned building around us, turning a few inches at a time, but I honestly didn't expect her to find anyone watching. I'd chosen this spot for that very reason, because none of the nearby buildings were in any shape for someone to live in — not even the homeless, drug-addled wretches that made up the Merchants bothered to try.

Once Lisa had completed one whole rotation, she turned back to me. "Nope. It's just us out here, Captain."

I nodded. What I'd expected, then. "Good."

I turned back around and took a few steps until I was standing near the edge of the pier.

One of the other reasons I'd chosen this spot was because it wasn't easily visible from the Rig, where the Protectorate was based out of. The northern ferry station might have been a bit easier to get to, and even a bit safer, since it was closer to the Boardwalk, but it was also in clear view of the Rig and closer to a much more populated area. I hadn't wanted to risk anyone, not even the heroes, seeing me out here building my secret base.

"Set. Include."

In a flash, I was in my costume and already had Nimue Included. As I'd suspected they might, the pair of necklaces I'd built had carried over, and I lifted the second one up to cup in my hands.

"What's that?" Lisa asked from beside me.

I glanced over to her, then down at the pendant. It looked vaguely like a piece of opaque, blue crystal, almost like lapis lazuli, laser carved with a precision that was impossible for normal tools. The cutaway sections reminded of the jagged cliffs of a mountain or the tiers of a pyramid.

Or a key.

"It's our way in," I told her.

"Wait, really?"

I didn't answer her directly. Instead, I reached into myself and focused on the pendant in my hands. I grabbed at the well of warmth and power that rested inside of me, pushing it down through my arms and my fingers and into the key.

"Let there be a pathway through the ocean."

Light shone. On the churning sea in front of me, a steady pattern of glowing lines and arcane symbols drew themselves. Despite the undulating waves lapping at the pillars of the pier, the designs that sat atop them were clear and steady. Circles, circles within circles, triangles and stars. An ancient, flowing script that Nimue referred to as "Fairy Letters."

After a moment, the lines and symbols bled together, and what was left behind was a circular disk of light.

I turned to Lisa and gestured towards the disc. "After you."

She blinked. "Huh?"

"That pendant also has a permission function," I told her. "As long as you know where the doorway is, you just need to tell it to open and pass through it."

I'd added it after some thought, last night. If I was going to be showing Lisa this place anyway, then I might as well give her an impregnable fortress to retreat to if things ever got that bad or Coil decided to come after her. In spite of everything, I still wanted her as my friend, and I wasn't about to skimp on ways to protect her.

"Huh. You know, your powers really are bullshit."

I fought down the slightest of grins.

"Well." She stepped up to the front of the pier and looked down warily. She grimaced. "Nothing for it, I guess."

Lisa took a deep breath and visibly mustered her courage, then leapt off of the pier, curled her legs into her chest, and shouted, "Cannonball!"

I rolled my eyes, and there was no splash following her jump. I just took the last couple of steps and walked off the edge of the pier and into the portal.

I came out with a jarring landing on my feet. I hadn't found a way to make it any more comfortable, but I'd learned to deal with the disorientation of coming to so sudden a stop, and Lisa obviously hadn't. She was standing a few feet away from my own spot, rubbing gingerly at her tailbone and cursing under her breath.

"Could've warned a girl, you know," she griped.

"It's your own fault," I told her unapologetically. "That's what you get for being so childish."

"Yeah, yeah," she muttered. Then, she stopped and looked around, and I watched her, her expression of surprise and awe, the way she even forgot to stop rubbing at her bruised behind, as she took in the sight of it.

"Whoa. You actually have your own fucking _castle_?"

I looked out, now, too. The ramparts loomed over the courtyard, tall and solidly built. The white brick gleamed in the flickering light of the sun from above, and the glitter of the grid of golden lines that held them together made them appear to sparkle like jewels. They looked as though they could withstand even the strongest of modern missiles, as though Lung himself could hack and claw and blast fire at them without leaving a scratch. Upon their fronts were traced symbols in sapphire, arcane formulae that made the sturdy walls even stronger.

The towers stretched up towards the sky, roofed with blue tiles of lapis lazuli. Banners woven of blue and gold silk flew from their tops, waving in a nonexistent breeze. From the windows hung yet more banners, forked at the bottom and bearing a coat of arms that looked like nothing that had ever been used before.

And at the center of it all stood the monolithic keep, the tallest, largest single part of the entire thing. It was circular and rounded, built into three, staggered tiers that reached up towards the murky blue sky — which, down here, was the surface of the ocean. Atop its roofs and ledges, I knew, there were more patterns in sapphire, forming into a magic circle of truly massive scale, designed for performing thaumaturgy of the highest order.

I'd seen pictures of Windsor and Buckingham, and for sheer majesty, they couldn't even compare. This was a castle fit for a queen, already a priceless marvel on dry land, made even more incredible by its location on the bottom of the ocean. It was almost impossible to imagine that I had even had any part in making this thing.

We had landed just inside the main gate, and behind us, the ocean floor seemed to fade out into infinity. Above us, the weight of the whole sea pressed down upon an invisible barrier that protected the castle and its inhabitants.

"Yeah."

There were other options I'd explored, other castles I'd looked into to see if they would work, but I kept running into the same problem: a hero's Noble Phantasm faded once I let go of that hero's Install. Other castles that could be manifested just by activating them as a Noble Phantasm would disappear as soon as I was done with the Install.

Not this one. This one, I'd built myself using Nimue's knowledge. Brick by brick, design by design, every little bit by itself, I'd constructed it with her power, with her magic. The woman, part fairy, who was Merlin's equal in knowledge and talent, had put together this great castle in the span of only a few weekends. Less than six days, total.

When you looked at the size of it, encompassing an area roughly equivalent to the entirety of Downtown, the idea that it could be built in anything less than ten _years_ seemed _insane_.

I turned back to Lisa and offered her a smile. "Welcome to Castle Avalon."

"Holy fuck," she breathed. "This place is _huge_! And is that… _gold_? That's gold. That's fucking _gold_. Enough for… Damn, you could make a _fortune_! And that's sapphire and this is…"

She stopped, turned towards me, again.

"Wait. Castle _Avalon_?" I nodded and watched the dots connect in her head. "Lady of the Lake?"

"Nimue," I confirmed with another nod.

"Huh." Lisa went back to looking around, taking in all of the different parts of the castle, all of the designs and complexities. "I… I don't even… I mean, I guess it makes sense? Lady of the Lake, has a castle that can go underwater… And it's made of gold and sapphire and…because why the fuck not, right? I… Just… Gimme a moment, here."

I said nothing and just waited. Lisa took what felt like several long minutes, taking several long, deep breaths and going through what looked like some kind of ritual to calm herself down.

"I really need to start upping my expectations for what you're actually capable of," she said wryly. "Anyway. I'm guessing there's more defenses than just that barrier up there protecting us from being crushed under the weight of the ocean?"

"Loads," I said without specifying.

The main defense of the castle was in its ability to be submerged and hidden from sight, true, but the characteristic attribute of it was actually in its flexibility. Unlike most of the other castles I'd come across in my comparisons, Castle Avalon's fortifications weren't too far beyond ordinary — nothing like Lancelot's Joyeuse Garde, which stripped intruders of their identities and forced them to fight a gauntlet of knights to regain the memory of their names — but it made up for it by making any fortification added part of the Noble Phantasm.

That was mostly a side effect, though, of how it had been constructed and its _true_ ability, the thing that made it _Nimue's_ Noble Phantasm rather than just a generic castle.

"Huh," Lisa said again, then she finally turned back towards me. "Guess I was right, wasn't I? Your wizard type heroes are _much_ more frightening than someone as straightforward as a swordsman."

She wasn't wrong, really. Both Nimue and Medea, my main casters, were incredibly flexible, and the high class alchemists, like Nicolas Flamel and Paracelsus, while they didn't have the same versatility, could transform matter, turn lead into gold, and make philosopher's stones. Honestly, some of the things they could do were downright terrifying, and some were so weighty that I didn't really trust myself to use them responsibly.

What right did I have, really, to decide who deserved to live forever and who didn't?

"So," Lisa began, "this is a pretty incredible place and all, but I'm guessing you didn't bring me down here to give me the grand tour, right?"

"No." I gave a small shake of my head. "No, that's not why I brought you here. Hang on…"

I closed my eyes and let out a breath, focusing on myself. I tried to remember what it had felt like, yesterday, when I'd made that geis with her. How I'd pulled on that specific portion of my powers. I focused clearly on the mental image of it, on the idea in my head of what I wanted, and when I pushed Nimue away, I tried to push away part of my costume, too.

Yesterday, I'd manifested just enough of my Breaker form and my costume to seal that geis. It stood to reason I could do it again, manifesting just enough to Include rather than swapping out my whole wardrobe.

I felt the barely there weights on my body shift. The mask that covered my face, the vest that hugged me, the sturdy boots that felt like armor on my calves and feet, the vambraces that clung to my wrists and jutted up over my forearms. The feeling of being wrapped in a second skin stayed, but everything else was replaced by the weight of my hoodie and the looseness of my jeans.

When I opened my eyes again, my glasses were back and I was dressed in my normal clothes. I looked down at my hands, inspecting them — the gloves were still there, and so was the shimmer of my most basic power.

Like this, you couldn't even notice I was…

As soon as the thought began to form, I knew it was wrong. Amy had told me that I'd been moving with more grace and speed than a professional athlete while fighting Glory Girl, and I hadn't even noticed it, at the time. I hadn't been using my power, either. If I tried to fight like this, hiding the usage of my power behind my normal clothes, when my Breaker form was much more _noticeably_ superhuman, I'd out myself within the first few seconds.

Either way, I'd proven that I _could_ selectively manifest only parts of my costume. I had no idea how, yet, but I was sure that would come in handy later on.

I let out another breath and reached through myself, out into the vast beyond where my heroes lied.

"Set. Include."

My chosen hero's power flooded through me. It had never been as grand or as awesome, in the original sense of the word, as Installing was, but it was still a bit of a rush.

 **Mentoring Great Heroes  
** "Aite Láechrad."

The moment I'd activated her Noble Phantasm again, I checked my proficiency in the Ancient Celtic Martial Arts — the upper edges of C-Rank. I was so close to B that it'd take me only a few minutes of training to reach it.

When I looked up at her again, Lisa was staring at me curiously, head tilted slightly to one side. "Aite Láechrad…" she mumbled. "That's Irish, isn't it, so…Aife again, right?"

I nodded. "Yeah."

She was right, I hadn't just brought her here to admire the castle I'd built myself. It had occurred to me, last night, that one of the best ways to protect Lisa and help her escape Coil was to arm her with something that couldn't be taken away, the way a gun or a knife or even that protective amulet could. The best way to protect her would be to teach her to defend herself, so that she could fight free, even against another cape.

It had occurred to me, of course, that she could go and use such a skill to become a better villain. She might take them and use them against the heroes, use them to rob things or hurt people she couldn't have, before.

But that wasn't what I was going to be teaching her for, so that would be a betrayal of my trust, wouldn't it? Too, it wasn't like I was planning on teaching her the higher grades, the stuff that was _really_ out there.

And… Well, I had to admit, at least part of me took a bit of pleasure in the idea of Lisa learning these feats the way I had learned them and found it funny to imagine her fumbling with the Apple Feat or jumping in place for hours with the Salmon Leap.

It was enough that I couldn't quite stop the smile — even if it was small and understated — from pulling at the corners of my lips.

"So," I said, "how would you like to learn to defend yourself with the most bullshit martial arts to ever be invented?"

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

 **Taylor, relying on a mystical contract to enforce trust is generally a _bad_ idea, you know. Like, I shouldn't even have to explain _why_ it's a bad idea.**

 **Anyway, here's Nimue's Noble Phantasm: Castle Avalon. Strangely, it's not quite the most bullshit NP she has. Remember how she gave Excalibur to King Arthur and received it back? Yeah, guess how _that_ manifests as a Noble Phantasm. Even though it'll probably never be relevant.**

 **As always, read, review, and enjoy.**

 **And for early access to chapters and bonus content:**

 **p a treon . com (slash) James_D_Fawkes**


	27. Collateral 4-3

**Collateral 4.3**

Dad was gone when I got home after my morning run on Saturday. His truck was missing from the driveway, and when I made my way back into the house, there was a hastily scrawled note pinned to the fridge with an old, worn magnet that had once depicted a yellow smiley face.

 _Taylor_ , it read. _There was an emergency at work that I had to go and handle. I'm not sure when I'll be home, so there's leftovers in the fridge and twenty dollars under the cookie jar if you need to order out for dinner. Love, Dad._

The note went back on the fridge, and when I checked under the cookie jar, sure enough, there was a pair of fives and a tenner pinned beneath it.

With the mystery solved, I went and took a nice, long shower, staying perhaps a little longer than necessary so that I could enjoy the stream of hot water on my shoulders and neck and down my back. By the time I turned the water off and finally stepped back out, my fingers were wrinkled and prune-like and the bathroom mirror was covered in a thick fog.

The fog was slow to fade, but by the time I'd finished toweling dry, the mirror was clear enough that I could see myself in it. When it was only the long, dark hair of which I was so proud that remained damp, I stopped and let my towel fall to the tiled floor so that I could examine myself, as I had just over a week ago.

It must have looked silly, me standing there, naked, flexing my arms and my legs and staring at my own bum. It wasn't about vanity, although I could admit that I was in the best shape of my life and I liked it. The paunch that had clung stubbornly to my lower belly was gone, my stomach was flat, my legs looked like they went on _forever_ … My face may not have changed and my boobs might not have really developed much, but I was…happy with the rest, I thought.

I wasn't trying to admire myself, though, I was trying to find some sign of what Amy had been talking about, some hint or clue or detail that would clearly mark me as superhuman. Something, anything, that would make it obvious that I could do things that would make professional athletes jealous.

There was nothing, though. No grotesque, exaggerated muscle mass. No protruding veins. My pectorals hadn't taken over my chest and my abs weren't so chiseled you could grate cheese on them. I was fit, and I could freely admit that the me of a year ago would have been envious enough for three people of how I was now, but I looked, at most, like I worked out and stayed in shape.

Yesterday afternoon, I'd spent several hours training with Lisa, teaching her the same martial arts I used. In the course of that time, I'd shot up from just below B-Rank to a hair's breadth from A-Rank. It was a massive increase, easily triple as much as I would normally get in a single day's effort by myself — and, in light of that, it was now obvious that I would learn a skill quicker if I was also _teaching_ it to someone — but in spite of that massive jump, there was nothing different about me.

No bulging muscles. No great increase in height or weight. No sudden desire to eat a whole cow for dinner. I felt the same now as I did yesterday.

"Maybe Amy was wrong?" I muttered to myself.

But that didn't quite ring true. After all, Amy had some sort of sense for biology, some sixth sense that came from her powers that let her "see" muscles and bones and stuff, so she would obviously be able to see it all in better detail that my normal, unaided eyes could. Just because I didn't see anything like what she was talking about didn't mean she was wrong.

For that matter, Amy also happened to live with a whole _team_ of superheroes, at least one of which was an Alexandria Package. Undoubtedly, she had a better grasp of what "superhuman" looked like than I did.

In the end, I decided I wasn't going to find anything, gave up my inspection, went back to my room, and got dressed. I thought about going out and getting some more training in or something, but I didn't feel like doing anything like that, today, so I grabbed one of my unfinished novels instead and plopped myself down on the couch to read.

Right around noon, I heard a distant rumble, heavy and echoing, that reverberated through our old house and rattled even the coffee table a little. I frowned, marked my place in my book, and went over to the window to look outside, but the sky was only a little overcast. There were no stormclouds in sight, and I couldn't remember hearing it was going to rain anytime today.

I shrugged — Dad had always said that meteorology wasn't an exact science, anyway, and maybe I just hadn't been paying enough attention to the forecast — and was heading back over to my seat when my new cellphone rang. I picked it up without really checking — there was only one person who actually had my number, after all, and that was Lisa — and pressed the button on the screen that looked like a green telephone.

"Hello?" I said. "Lisa?"

" _Taylor, good, you answered,"_ Lisa said, sounding rushed. _"Are you near a tv?"_

"Um, yes? There's one right in front of me."

" _Good,"_ said Lisa. _"Turn it on, any channel. Now."_

"O…kay…"

I grabbed the remote with my free hand and turned on the tv. Immediately, I was looking at a newscaster sitting at a desk, the Brockton Bay News Network logo blown up behind him, with a banner at the bottom streaming something that I wasn't really watching. I was paying more attention to the grim expression on the man's face.

"— ring you this special news bulletin," he was saying. "Just minutes ago, three large explosions rocked Brockton Bay. One occurred in a parking garage near Brockton General Hospital. Another struck the headquarters of the Dockworkers Union, the local chapter of the International Longshoreman's Association."

For an instant, my heart stopped beating.

"The third and final explosion hit the iconic Medhall building downtown, causing it to collapse," the newscaster continued, heedless of what he'd just done to me. "At this time, there is no information regarding how many were injured or killed in the explosions, nor what caused them. However, Medhall CEO, Max Anders, was last known to be in his office near the top floor, and there has been no word, yet, about whether or not he survived the explosion or the subsequent collapse."

I felt my mouth drop open, and the remote fell from my hand and clattered to the floor with what seemed to be a thunderous clang.

" _Taylor?"_ said Lisa's voice, tinny and distant. _"Taylor, are you still there? Taylor!"_

"Dad," I whispered.

Heat gathered in my eyes, burning, and my knees were suddenly too weak to support me. I landed unceremoniously on the couch, staring, unblinking, at the television that had just told me I was now an orphan.

I was alone.

What was I going to do? Dad… Dad was all I'd had left, in the world. All the family I'd still had. I didn't… How was I…

"Wait," said the newscaster, lifting his hand to one ear. "Ladies and gentlemen, I've just been informed that BBNN has received a video and a claim of responsibility from Brockton Bay's pan-asian gang, the Azn Bad Boys, also known as the ABB. We have not had the time to watch the video ourselves, but we will show it to you here, unedited.

"Please, keep in mind, it may not be suitable for some viewers and some may find the contents disturbing. Parents are strongly advised to remove their children from the room, and those with weak constitutions should be aware that the following footage is likely to be unpleasant. Viewer discretion is advised."

The image on the tv changed to black, then flickered on to reveal what looked like some mad scientist's workshop. There were wires and spare parts and half-finished contraptions laid out all over the place, and standing in the middle of the chaos was a woman. She had long, black hair and wore a set of large goggles and what looked like a gas mask.

A cape, definitely.

The embers of anger started to burn through the despair.

The one who had killed Dad.

"Hello, Brockton Bay," the cape said. Her voice had a mechanical rasp to it, like she was talking from down a long tunnel or maybe wearing a modulator, like from those spy movies. "If you don't recognize me yet, then you'll come to know my face soon enough. My name is Bakuda, and until Lung is free, _I_ am the leader of the gang known as the Azn Bad Boys."

She made a grandiose gesture, drawing my attention to the braided cords of wire that stretched over each of her shoulders. With the various gadgets and such arrayed around and behind her, it was pretty obvious that she was a Tinker.

"The three bombs you just experienced were _my_ creations," she went on with a note of pride. " _Those_ were just to let you know how serious I am when I tell you not to _fuck with me_. I've already set up several more around the city, just waiting for my signal to go off and _really_ fuck up someone's day. If you don't do exactly as I ask, well, the three examples I just gave you should tell you what will happen, then."

She'd kill more people. Tension began to make its way through my body, and I wanted to get up and move, to go find her and take her down, so that she couldn't do to others what she'd done to Dad, so that I could stop her from taking anyone else's family away.

So that I…

I was already thinking of what hero I would use. Which one would be guaranteed to succeed. Siegfried, King Arthur, all of my knightly, frontline fighters were immediately out. I needed someone who could reach her without any chance of being stopped or delayed.

So that I could…

"Tomorrow, I'll send another video with my demands. Rest assured, one of them will be letting our glorious leader go. For now, the ABB has some _unfinished business_ with the upstart hero responsible for his current condition. We have to take care of that before we can get on with all of the other stuff."

Bakuda leaned forward and towards the camera menacingly. The bright red of her goggles gleamed in the light of her dimly lit workshop, giving her an almost devilish appearance.

She was talking about me, I realized, moments before she started speaking again. She was doing all of this because I'd gotten Lung locked up.

"To Apocrypha, I send this message," she said. There was something like glee in her voice. "I hope I have your attention. This time, I let daddy dearest go. I _could_ have blown him to pieces with all his work buddies, but I just wanted to make sure you were _listening_ , because I _do_ know who you are. I'll be expecting you at the warehouse tonight at midnight — you know, the one you've been practicing your powers at — and for every hour you're late, I'll detonate a bomb. If you show up more than ten minutes early, I'll detonate a bomb. If you bring the Protectorate or those New Wave cunts, I'll detonate a bomb."

Bakuda let out a low chuckle. "And if you still haven't shown up by noon tomorrow? I'll blow up your house, _with you inside it_."

She wasn't leaving me any way out. She wasn't giving me the chance to bring help or call the authorities. She was forcing me to either come alone or let her destroy more people's lives. And if I didn't go, she was going to kill me and Dad anyway.

Not that I was planning on staying away.

As the tv switched back to the newscaster, I lifted my phone back up to my ear. "Lisa."

" _Oh thank God, you're still there,"_ said Lisa. _"Taylor, listen —"_

"Is my dad okay?" I asked, cutting across her.

" _What?"_

" _Is my dad okay_?" I asked again.

" _Fine, he's fine,"_ she said quickly. _"Bakuda did exactly what she said she did. Dockworkers HQ is ruined, but no one was hurt inside."_

I let out a breath of relief and sagged into the couch. Thank goodness. Dad was okay.

" _Listen, Taylor —"_

The home phone started ringing, suddenly. My heart jumped _—_ it had to be _—_ and I dropped my cell onto the couch without even bothering to end the call. I was up and picking up the kitchen phone as quickly as my legs could carry me.

"Dad?"

" _Taylor?"_ said Dad's voice.

The last of the anxiety drained out of me. "Thank God. Are you okay?"

It wasn't that I hadn't believed Lisa, but… I hadn't _really_ believed Dad was okay until I heard his voice for myself. I couldn't lose Dad, too. Not after I just got him back.

" _I'm fine,"_ Dad said. _"I'm alright, Taylor. I wasn't even in the building when the explosion happened."_

"Are you…?"

" _I'm with Kurt and Lacey. Kurt let me borrow his cellphone so I could call you and let you know I'm okay. Oh — wait, hang on."_

I heard movement from Dad's end of the line, and someone's voice said something that I couldn't quite make out. Dad said something in reply.

" _Listen,"_ Dad began when he got back to me, _"things are pretty hectic, out here, so I don't have much time to talk. We're still trying to find everybody and make sure no one's hurt, check the damage and see what's fixable and what's not, and that's gonna take at least a few more hours. I'm not sure when I'll make it back home, tonight."_

"Oh," I said simply.

" _Definitely before midnight, though. You gonna be okay by yourself? You got my note, found the money under the cookie jar?"_

I nodded, even though Dad couldn't see me. "Yeah. I'll be fine."

" _Good. I've gotta go, now. I'll see you later tonight, okay?"_

"Okay."

" _Alright, then."_

"Dad?" I said before he could say goodbye.

" _Yeah?"_

I hesitated, but only for a few seconds.

"I love you."

It felt like forever since I'd said those words to him.

" _I love you, too, Taylor,"_ Dad said softly.

"Bye."

" _Bye."_

I hung up the phone, and for a moment, I just stood there, staring blankly at the receiver. My thoughts felt like they were all over the place, and I didn't know whether I should be relieved that Dad was okay, worried at the threat to our lives, guilty for having apparently brought all of this upon us, or angry at Bakuda for breaking the unwritten rules and involving Dad in this mess.

I felt my lips pull into a thin line. Probably angry. Relief and guilt could wait until this whole thing had been handled and Bakuda was no longer an axe looming over mine and Dad's necks.

I walked back into the living room, picked up my cellphone, and took a seat back on the couch.

"Lisa."

" _Taylor?"_ came Lisa's voice. _"Your dad okay?"_

"He's fine," I told her. "…Sorry."

I wasn't sure whether I was apologizing for not taking her at her word or for leaving her on hold like that.

" _It's fine. Don't worry about it."_ There was a short pause, barely a second. _"You saw Bakuda's message, then?"_

I looked back up at the tv, where the newscaster was still talking about the bombs. "Yeah."

" _I wish I could tell you not to go, to leave it to the Protectorate and the PRT,"_ Lisa began.

"— but we both know I wouldn't listen," I finished for her.

Not after she threatened my dad. No way was I going to leave it for the heroes to handle while I sat back and waited.

" _No,"_ she said, _"it's not even just that. Bakuda is deadly serious about this. If anyone but you shows up tonight, she_ will _cut her losses and start blowing stuff up. And it won't be the tame, conventional explosives she used already."_

I hesitated.

" _Conventional_ explosives?"

" _She's a Tinker specializing in_ bombs _, Taylor."_ Lisa didn't need to add 'duh' for me to hear it. _"Who knows what kind of crazy shit she can build? That's why I'm going to stress this:_ **be careful**. _Bakuda has already proven she's willing to ignore the rules and escalate, so_ expect _for her to have stacked the deck in her favor."_

Which had to mean traps and mines and all sorts of stuff prepared to make sure that she could get me exactly where she wanted me. She'd probably be bringing a bunch of flunkies with guns, too.

"Any other advice I can use?"

" _Yeah. Something pretty simple, too._ Bakuda doesn't know what your power is _. No one outside Armsmaster and Miss Militia do,_ maybe _the Director of the PRT does. You'll have the element of surprise, and all she'll have to go on is a few vague accounts from those thugs you knocked out before fighting Lung. Do it right, make her drop her guard by letting her monologue, and she'll never know what hit her."_

For a moment, I was silent, and I contemplated the tabletop in front of me. The thing with Glory Girl notwithstanding, I'd only ever been in one real cape fight, and that was with Lung himself. Now that I'd had a minute to calm down and come off of that moment of despair and fury, I realized that it probably wouldn't be a good idea to just run off and hope for the best, the way I basically had that first night. I'd been lucky to have a powerset that gave me an answer to him fairly easily, but that wouldn't carry me through my whole career as a hero.

Undoubtedly, Bakuda had planned this whole thing out. If I just went in and winged it… I wasn't sure what she would really be capable of, when you had a bombmaker with access to the kind of high-tech, futuristic stuff that was characteristic of Tinkers, but the sorts of things Medea and my other casters could do gave me a healthy enough imagination for some of the possibilities.

"What did you have in mind?" I asked Lisa.

And if Bakuda could do even _half_ the things I imagined, then the absolute _worst_ idea would be to confront her in an area of her choosing after she'd had who knew how long to prepare it and get ready for me.

" _Well,"_ Lisa hedged, _"I don't have a perfect read on her, because I've been using my power_ way _too much, recently, and I already have a headache because of it, but I picked up quite a few things just from that video alone. So, this is what you should expect…"_

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

I had to wait almost ten more hours for Dad to get home, and no amount of going over the plan again and again could distract me from a mounting feeling of worry and anxiety. I couldn't stop myself, now that Bakuda had played with one of my deepest fears, from imagining all of the things that could go wrong on his way home.

Bakuda could decide to screw with me again and just kill Dad outright, this time. She'd already proven willing to attack me outside my costume, and her biggest threat was that she'd kill us both if I didn't show up within twelve hours of the deadline. There was nothing, really, stopping her from putting a bomb in his truck while he was helping out with whatever emergency had called him in, this morning.

Or he could get into a car accident. Just…random chance. No rhyme or reason, no grand scheme, just the bad luck of getting t-boned by another truck driver or something. One guy drunk after the horror of the day, one idiot running a red light at sixty miles an hour — that was all it would take, and they'd be calling me to the city morgue to identify him.

Or maybe it would just be a mugger, trying to make a few bucks. Some guy who'd spent a little too long down on his luck or some strung out druggie desperate for the money to buy his next high, it didn't matter. It just had to be someone with a gun who wouldn't take no for an answer. Dad wasn't bulletproof, after all.

Over and over, my brain imagined scenarios for how he could be killed on his way home, from the frighteningly plausible to the bizarre and impractical. I was, suddenly, keenly aware of the number of ways he could be torn away from me, and now I could do nothing but think of them all as I sat in the living room, the tv on in the background, and waited.

It didn't matter how it happened, really. Whether it was Bakuda or a mugger or a reckless driver, the end result would be the same: Dad would be gone, and I would be alone.

My heart skipped a beat when I heard what I was sure was the door of his truck slamming shut, and Dad hadn't even managed to get all the way in through the front door before I had stood, run over, and thrown myself into his chest. Maybe a little harder than I should have, really, considering that I apparently had superhuman strength; the sound of Dad's breath escaping his body was almost explosive.

"Oof!" Dad stumbled backwards, a little, but managed to keep himself upright. After a moment, his arms came up and wrapped around me, too. "Hey, I'm happy to see you, too, but maybe be a little less rough, next time? I think I heard my ribs creak."

I buried my face in his chest, but loosened my grip a little bit. "I saw the news," I mumbled into his shirt. "I thought…"

 _I thought I'd lost you, too._

"Hey." He gave me a comforting squeeze. "I'm okay, alright? No one was in the building when the bomb went off. Everyone's fine. I'm not even singed, okay?"

I held on for a few minutes longer, as though to assure myself that he was really there and not a hallucination or a fevered daydream. Eventually, though, I had to let go, so I stepped back and let him come the rest of the way into the house. When the door closed, it felt like he was finally home and safe.

"How bad was it?" I asked quietly.

 _How close did I come to losing you?_

Dad's mouth twisted into a lopsided grimace. "Did you eat?" he asked instead, changing the subject. "I'd understand if you weren't hungry, after what happened today —"

"Dad," I cut him off. "How bad?"

For a long moment, Dad just stared at me, mouth pulled into a thin line, and it was easy to tell he didn't want to say. At length, though, he let out a long, loud breath through his nose and ran his hand through his thinning hair. I thought I heard him mutter something like, "You're just like your mother," but I might have been imagining it.

"Bad," he decided on eventually. "No one was hurt, but most of the building is either rubble or barely standing. The city will be sending an inspector in a few days to decide whether or not it can be fixed, but I'm not holding my breath."

And if he'd been inside the building, he'd almost assuredly have been in as many pieces as the building itself was. They'd have had to send him home to me in a cigar box.

"Oh," I said lamely.

A hair's breadth away, it felt like. Not quite the same as, "an inch in either direction," but it felt like the closest of close calls.

"And…everyone else is okay, too?"

"Everyone's fine," Dad reassured me. "Someone called in a bomb threat, so we were all outside, waiting for SWAT or whoever to show up, when the explosion happened."

"O-oh."

Was that what Bakuda had meant, when she'd said she'd let Dad go? She called in the threat on her own bomb, just so that she could prove a point?

"Anyway, enough with the serious stuff." Dad gave me a tired smile. "Did you eat? It's a little late, but I could make you something real quick."

I gave a tiny shake of my head. "No, I ate. I just made myself some soup."

"Oh," said Dad. "Good. That's good."

We fell into an awkward silence. Neither of us seemed to know what to say, and I couldn't think of anything to really talk about that didn't bring up the bombing or how worried I'd been. Once again, I considered telling him about my powers, about how I was Apocrypha, but I knew it wasn't the time, either.

Dad would stop me, if he knew. He'd tell me not to go. I didn't want to think about what might happen, then, if I would obey and stay put, risking probably hundreds of lives, or if I would use my powers to put him to sleep and leave anyway, straining the relationship we had just started rebuilding.

"Well," Dad said at length. "It's been a long day. I'm going to head to bed, okay?"

Dad started to head down the hall, but I reached out to grab his hand and stopped him.

"Wait," I said as he turned back around. "Hang on. I… I've got something for you."

I let go and made my way past him, practically sprinting down to my room and to my desk. I nearly tore the drawer off when I pulled it open, I yanked on it so hard, and when I'd grabbed what I came for and slid it closed, my whole desk seemed to rattle.

"Everything okay?" Dad asked as I came back down the hall. "I could hear that from here."

I felt my cheeks flush a little. "Everything's fine," I told him. "I was just… Anyway, here."

I thrust out my hand, from which dangled a glimmering golden amulet. Dad's eyes went wide.

"Taylor," he whispered as he took it gingerly, "this is…"

He examined it carefully, turning it over in his hands and inspecting the craftsmanship. It wasn't exactly very masculine, being that it was identical to mine, but I hadn't had the time to go about making a new one, and when I was making this one, I hadn't been particularly concerned about whether or not it was manly enough.

He looked back up at me. "Where did you get this? It looks…expensive."

"I've been saving up," I told him, because I _had_ been working on it for a while. "Lisa helped, too," I added, for good measure. It was even sort of true, too. "It's part of a matching set."

I reached down my shirt and pulled my own amulet up to show him. "See?"

"It's beautiful," Dad said. "It really is. I just…what's the occasion?"

"Oh, ah…"

I scrambled to think of a lie, something simple and easy that made sense enough he wouldn't question it.

"I guess…" I began. "It's…been a while since I actually got you a present. You know, for Father's Day."

I fought down a cringe. That was terrible.

"Oh." Dad seemed to buy it, though. "Well, it's very nice. Thank you, Taylor. I'll be sure to wear it."

I wanted to believe him. I wanted to trust that he really would, that he'd do exactly as he said.

But I couldn't.

It was one of those easy, careless promises people made all the time. In reality, he might wear it once or twice, maybe whenever he remembered it, but it would probably sit on his dresser or in one of the drawers, most days. It wouldn't tarnish, it wouldn't lose its luster, but it would just sit there. Forgotten, left behind.

Useless, in other words. It wouldn't do what I'd made it for — _couldn't_ , as long as he wasn't wearing it. If I wanted it to protect him, as Lisa's protected her and mine protected me, then he needed to wear it every day. _Every day_.

I swallowed thickly and hated myself for what I was about to do.

Because if I couldn't trust him to consciously choose to wear it, then I needed to take away the option to go without it.

"Do you promise?" I asked him meekly.

"Promise?" Dad parroted.

I took his hands in mine, then looked up and into his eyes, just so that he wouldn't see the black bodysuit that wrapped over my fingers.

"Promise you'll wear it every day?" I said.

Dad gave me a reassuring smile. "I promise."

I reached out and twisted the world, and just to make sure it took, I asked him, "You really promise?"

Dad pulled one of his hands from mine and traced a cross over his chest. "I promise."

The geis wound itself around his heart, binding him to his word. I hated myself for doing it to him, for taking away even the slightest bit of his free will. First with Lisa, now with Dad… It felt like a slippery slope I might slide down, if I wasn't careful.

But… I was scared, and I couldn't take any chances. This was Dad's life, his safety, at risk. Bakuda had already proven exactly how easily he could die, how easily he could be taken from me, and I had already lost Mom — I couldn't, I _couldn't_ lose Dad, too.

So, my geis wound itself around his heart, and I stole away a little of Dad's free will. Maybe, when it was time to tell him about my powers, I would undo it and trust him to wear it on his own. For now, he would never go another day without wearing the amulet that would protect his life.

The undersuit faded away. I let go of his hands, but I couldn't meet his eyes, anymore.

"Goodnight, Dad."

 _I'm sorry_.

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

 **Watch your step, Taylor. That slope you're looking down is like ice.**

 **How many of you actually thought I'd killed Danny, there?**

 **I was hoping everyone would have forgotten about Bakuda by the time this chapter rolled around, but it wasn't to be. Oh well.**

 **As always, read, review, and enjoy.**

 **And for early access to chapters and bonus content:**

 **p a treon . com (slash) James_D_Fawkes**


	28. Collateral 4-4

**Collateral 4.4**

I waited until I was sure Dad was asleep, until I was absolutely certain that he was tucked away in bed and sawing logs, before I got ready to leave. I made sure to divest myself of anything too important to risk — the phone Lisa had just bought me chiefly among them — and double and triple checked that I had my protective amulet, tucked away under my hoodie.

Then, a few minutes after eleven o'clock, when I was as sure as I could be, I braced myself and entered my base form. In an instant, I was standing in the center of my room, clad in my costume, staring through the lenses of my mask.

For a couple of moments, I fidgeted a little, inspecting my vambraces, picking at the bodysuit, adjusting the fit of the vest to make sure I was comfortable. In reality, I was just procrastinating. I was trying to put off going for as long as possible, because I was more than a little nervous and scared.

Maybe the professional heroes would have been fine and filled with confidence. Me, I could freely admit that I was a bit worried about heading into a fight against someone whose powers I didn't know anything about, especially since she was a _Tinker_ who specialized in _bombs_.

Being afraid didn't change anything, though. I couldn't let her go, not to keep terrorizing the city and not to get another shot at killing Dad. I couldn't let her hurt anyone I cared about or tear apart anyone else's lives.

And, in the end, I was a hero. Bakuda was a villain. It really was that simple.

"Okay," I told myself, taking a steadying breath. "Set. Install."

I reached out and through myself and pulled on my chosen hero — if, indeed, you could properly call him a hero in the first place — and a moment later, I had taken on the form of the man swathed in black who had taken down Lung's group of gangers, the Hundred-Faced Hassan.

I wasted no more time and clambered over my bed, sliding my window open so that I could slip out and through the gap with a liquidy, almost serpentine grace. I landed with a soft, almost inaudible thump on the grass of our yard, tensed and waiting.

Several seconds passed, but they felt like hours. An eternity stretched as I listened for the sound of someone rousing, crouched there on the ground, my heartbeat surprising calm and even, but no light flickered on in our house and Dad's voice didn't call out for me. He was still asleep.

I breathed a sigh of relief that sounded like the whisper of Death.

So far, so good.

I started off with a short, running leap, throwing myself over the fence and into the neighbor's yard, then began making my way towards the abandoned, run down warehouse where I had first started practicing my powers what felt like an eternity ago. I moved like a shadow, flitting from spot to spot with an agility that I had not really appreciated, before. I touched down on rooftops without a sound, silent as the grave. I landed on tree branches with the slightest of wobbles. The only signs of my passing were the footprints I left behind.

I was a ghost.

Lisa and I had agreed that I had no other option but to face Bakuda myself. As she had said, Bakuda was serious about her threats: if anyone but me showed up, if I showed up with anyone else in tow, she would detonate a bomb. Bakuda had never specified _which_ bomb or _where_ she'd planted it, but if she was willing to skirt so close to breaking the unwritten rules, it was entirely possible that she'd just skip the fanfare and bomb _my house_ , with me and Dad inside.

Lisa hadn't put that outside the realm of possibility.

At the same time, Bakuda's preferred ending to our meeting would probably result in me permanently disfigured, tortured, or outright dead. Lisa had told me that Bakuda was an egomaniac with a chip on her shoulder who felt she had something to prove. From the story she'd given me about the Cornell Bomber thing, I was willing to bet she had a far better grasp of Bakuda's character than I did.

And what better way to for Bakuda to vindicate herself, prove how great she was, than to take down the cape who'd beaten Lung?

It was a classic tactic that had shown up a lot in the myths and legends I'd researched. It was a fairly common thing that several of the Arthurian Romance writers had done to show off their new character's chops: pit him up against the greatest knight of the Round Table, Sir Gawain, and make them fight to a draw. Quite a few Knights of the Round Table had been established like that.

The reverse had also shown up in Herakles' myth: pit Herakles up against a bunch of impossible tasks, so that he could never succeed. The fact that he had was part of what made him such a well-known hero, what made his Twelve Labors as famous as they were. He'd been handed quests that no man should have been able to do, and then he'd _done_ them.

In this case, _I_ was Sir Gawain, _I_ was the Twelve Labors, and Bakuda was trying to prove herself by overcoming _me_.

It felt really surreal to think of it like that. Just a week ago, it would have been nonsensical and silly.

The wind that whipped at me as I went tugged on the ponytail that my hair had been magically gathered into when I had Installed Hassan of the Hundred Faces. It stung my eyes through the narrow slots that were cut into my mask, and I had to blink every now and again as they dried out. Somehow, and I had no idea how, I could see as clearly as if I wasn't wearing a mask at all.

There was no one else out, that I could see. The night around me was quiet and still, without even the distant sounds of a shouting drunk or a barking dog. It seemed that everyone had chosen to stay in, tonight. To escape Bakuda, probably. If I'd been a normal, everyday civilian, I doubt _I_ would have wanted to risk going out during this fiasco, either.

I landed on another roof, then leapt off and kept going. The quality of the buildings and the streets was starting to drop, a sure sign that I was approaching to poorer section of the Docks, where the ABB had the strongest footing.

I glanced up at the waxing crescent moon and decided that I was making good time. Hassan of the Hundred Faces might not have been the strongest or the most skilled of fighters, but what he lacked in martial ability, he made up for in agility, versatility, and the ability to move quickly and quietly. I knew better, now, than to bring him against someone like Lung, but for this, there were few better.

Regardless of the surrealism, though, that was how it was. Bakuda had chosen _me_ as her Mount Everest, her White Whale, because _I_ was the one who had defeated Lung.

The trouble was, Bakuda was a Tinker, and one specializing in bombs. By definition, I couldn't fight her the same way, with superior strength or overwhelming firepower, and expect things to go the same way. I had to fight her like one of my casters, like an entrenched enemy who had had time to settle in and fortify a position.

So, that was just what I'd have to do.

I landed with the softest of crunches on the gravel roof of a building just about a hundred yards away from the warehouse where I was supposed to be confronting Bakuda. I was so focused on what I was going to do when I got there that I _almost_ missed it, perched atop the corner of the next building over: a security camera, and a new one, at that.

I glanced around at the other buildings around me and solidified my first instinct: it was too new and too modern to have been there before, which made it very likely something Bakuda had set up — so that she could see me coming, probably. In which case…

Yes, when I looked for more, I could spot several, all stationary and pointing down towards the street. Again, they were all too new to have been there for very long, and in this area of the city, where the money would be better spent on fixing the roads or the streetlights, the odds of the mayor or the police department or whoever suddenly springing for security cameras were infinitesimally small.

This presented a problem, though. Bakuda had turned out smarter than I'd expected her to be, if she'd decided to go this far instead of just posting goons as sentries. Goons, I could dodge around, could sneak past, because goons were prone to boredom and making small talk to pass the time, and the human eye could be fooled. A _camera_ could not.

 **Delusional Illusion**

"Zabaniya," I muttered.

More of me slid into existence and peeled off without a word. Every time another camera was found, another of myself formed from shadow and vapor and took off to set up behind it. In total, it turned out, there were about twenty. One, two… Twenty-five, to be exact. Twenty-five security cameras, all set up to watch every avenue one could take to the warehouse, at least on the ground.

Once all of myself were positioned, we all reached in tandem and pulled out a small knife, balanced for throwing and sized for concealment. All of myself placed their knives against the cord that ran from the back of each of the security cameras, poised and waiting. I took a deep breath and prepared myself.

There was no way to avoid having to do this. If Bakuda could see me coming, she'd see how I planned to deal with her, and then, she'd either make good on her threats or run away and burrow in somewhere where I didn't know where she was. Maybe both simultaneously.

By the same token, the minute I cut these cords, she'd know I was here and I'd have only seconds to put my plan into motion. Half a minute, at most. A countdown timer. At that point, I'd have no other option other than to commit.

I took another deep, calming breath. Hassan's cool presence in the back of my head helped me to make the decision.

 _Now_.

As one, each and every single cord was cut with a quick, practiced flick of the wrist. Morbidly, Hassan's knowledge told me that slitting someone's throat was even easier.

The moment it was done, all of my duplicates disappeared and I dropped Hassan like a hot rock.

"Set. Include."

Then, immediately, I picked him back up again —

 **Delusional Illusion**

"Zabaniya."

— and split myself once more. An instant later, I was looking at another dozen of myself, each wearing the costume of Apocrypha, the heroine who had defeated Lung. Twelve girls with long, dark hair, wearing a purple vest and pants trimmed in gold, crouched together on that one rooftop.

Bakuda's plan was clever in its simplicity. She set up here, in the warehouse where I had once practiced my power what felt now like years ago, and likely set down traps and bombs and whatever she could think of. Pressure plates, landmines, tripwires, motion sensors — I had no idea what her limits were, but at least some of those could be made without a Tinker power using just a few supplies from a hardware store.

Then, she forced me to come here by threatening my Dad and calling me out on live television. Here, where she'd had who knew how much time to do whatever she liked. Here, where she could see me coming and probably had half a dozen ways to really ruin my day if I did anything but what she wanted.

An ambush didn't need to be impossibly complex if you could force your target to go where you wanted her.

That was why the plan I'd be using took advantage of one of the greatest advantages I had: Bakuda didn't know _my_ limits, either.

I and ten of my duplicates took off and made our way around, using the rooftops to position ourselves at various angles surrounding the warehouse. One stayed where I'd started, and the last dropped down to the street and started to approach the door I'd used to enter the warehouse that first time in January.

Once we were all ready to go, I connected myself to my alternate on the ground — I decided to call her DeeCee to cut down on the confusion, because she was my decoy — and closed my eyes so I could more clearly experience what she was seeing and hearing. When things really got started, it'd probably be harder to focus on what she was doing, but I only really needed to have that at the beginning.

My decoy was a decoy, yes, and yes, that was obvious, but that was only part of what I needed her for. As for the rest…

Well. Her most important job would really be just giving me an idea of who was where inside the warehouse.

DeeCee opened the door to the warehouse and stepped inside and into the dark.

"Bakuda!" she shouted. "I'm here! Show yourself!"

…So maybe I'd watched one or two too many superhero cartoons as a child.

A moment later, the lights flickered on — new lights, hanging from new fixtures, at that — and standing upon a catwalk not quite at the far end of the building was the woman I'd seen in the video sent to BBNN: gasmask, red goggles, long black hair. A bandolier and several belts, all lined with deceptively simple-looking canisters and grenades, hung from every possible place on her torso, from her shoulders to her hips.

"You're late," Bakuda's voice rasped from her mask.

Before DeeCee could say anything, Bakuda's head twitched and she shifted her weight around, and in the distance, there was a sonorous boom that jolted me, the real me, out of my concentration. I whirled around towards the source of the noise, and there, far off towards the center of downtown, I could see a black haze rising into the night sky.

Bakuda had set off another bomb.

How, I didn't know. I hadn't seen her press a switch or anything, so for all I knew, she had some kind of futuristic interface wired into her goggles or something. Hell, maybe she'd rigged it to go off at this time _anyway_ , regardless of whether or not I showed up. A woman like Bakuda — _a crazy bitch_ , I thought in the privacy of my own head — might have done it just because she _could_.

I felt my hands curl into fists. All the more reason why I needed to stop her.

"— do that?!" DeeCee was demanding when I focused back on her. "I'm here! I came, just like you said!"

"Why not?" Bakuda's mask turned her chuckle into a metallic stutter.

"You…!"

" _I'm_ the one in control, here," she said. " _I_ have all the power. I can do _whatever the fuck_ I want. Who's going to stop me? You?"

DeeCee took a step forward, snarling, but Bakuda shifted, bringing her arm around and swinging…a rocket launcher. She swung a _rocket launcher_ into view.

Suddenly, the belts and bandoliers, carrying all of those canisters and grenades, that were slung all over Bakuda's torso made sense. She didn't throw them at people or set them down as traps, she _shot_ them from that rocket launcher. Depending on if or how much she'd modified the thing, hell, depending on whether her Tinkertech was limited to bombs or if she could make other stuff, that rocket launcher drastically increased her range.

That…made this both easier and harder. Easier, because if I got close, it'd probably all be over in a punch or two. Harder, because until I _did_ , her options for what to hit me with and how hard were _much_ more numerous.

"Ah-ah-ah," she tutted. "See, the way this works? _You do what I say_. If you come too close, if you do something I don't like, if you try and be clever, hell, if you even fucking _breathe_ in a way that I find offensive, then I'll pick one of these beauties at random and see which of the whole fucking _host_ of ways your corpse gets to repaint this warehouse. And then, just for fun, I'll detonate one of those bombs I promised."

Bakuda patted one of her bandoliers, tapping her fingers against a shiny, silvery canister. They weren't labeled, at least not in any way that DeeCee — and by extension, I — could see, but Bakuda almost certainly had some way of telling them apart. I couldn't rely on her screwing up or making a mistake; I had to assume that she would never use anything but the one she intended.

DeeCee stepped back, fists clenched.

"Good girl," Bakuda mocked.

"Now what?" DeeCee asked. "You've made an enemy out of half the city, you shattered the unwritten rules, you've got me here… What, you gonna gloat?"

She made a show of looking around, head swiveling as she gave me and all of my other selves a perfect view of all of the goons Bakuda had brought along and where they were all placed. _Good girl, DeeCee_ , I thought as we adjusted our positioning. The whole plan hinged on being able to get everyone at once.

"You certainly brought a large enough audience for it."

Bakuda laughed, a wheezing, stuttering noise that sounded more like Dad's truck on one of its less cooperative days than something that came out of a human mouth. "Oh, they're not here to watch me gloat," she said. If I could have seen her mouth, I imagined she'd be showing all of her teeth. "They're here to watch me… Well. Do whatever it is I decide to do with you."

She ran her fingers over the edge of one of the silver canisters.

"See," she went on, "Lung taught me _a lot_ about respect and fear. He gets it easy enough, he's got the reputation for it. All he's gotta do is remind people every now and again why the ABB managed to last as long as it did with just him and Oni Lee against the Empire and their fucking _army_. Burn a few fuckers when they screw up, so they know not to do it again. Most figure out pretty quick not to cross him, and those that do… Well. If they're still around afterwards, then they've learned firsthand why Lung is fucking _Lung_."

She tilted her head down. The way the light hit her goggles at that angle made them seem almost to glow.

"Me, I'm not that fucking generous. Someone crosses _me_ , they don't get any second chances." She gestured vaguely at her masked face with one finger. "Kinda hard to try again, when you don't have a head. I like it that way. Quick, easy, and people learn _fast_ why you shouldn't try and _fuck with me_. These boys caught on real fast, too — I only had to demonstrate _once_."

Demonstrate…? A queasy feeling rolled around my stomach. Did that mean that she had… _blown_ one of her _own guys_ up? For _kicks_? I… Well, they were _thugs_ , yes, but _still_. Who _did_ that kind of thing? Even the peoples that had practiced _ritual sacrifice_ had done it to appease their gods and ensure a bountiful harvest, not because they got a laugh out of it.

I probably shouldn't have been as surprised as I was, since Lung had proven he was perfectly willing to murder a bunch of teenagers over what amounted to petty thievery.

"You _bitch_ ," snarled DeeCee.

Bakuda only laughed, like it was some great joke.

"Now, you," she said, "see, I can't be that nice, with you. It was _real fucking tempting_ to just blow you to pieces and be done with it. No muss, no fuss, just get rid of you like the fucking _speedbump_ you are. Honestly, the E88 are a bigger concern. I'm more worried about _Hookwolf_ than your scrawny, little ass. The problem is, _you beat Lung_. Left him _limbless and naked_ in the middle of the street. That means I have to get _flashy_. I have to show everyone in this _whole damn city_ why you don't mess with the ABB, why you don't _fuck_ with _Bakuda_."

She reached down and tore one of the canisters free from her bandolier.

"And I think I've found just the right way. I _thought_ about giving you a firsthand show of just what _spaghettification_ feels like. _That's_ a sufficiently grisly way to die, don't you think? Being stretched out like a noodle by gravitational forces, until your entire body is nothing but a string of molecules? But that's not enough of a _show_. I need a _spectacle_. Something for people to point to as a cautionary tale for the next, oh, say…maybe fifty thousand years?"

Suddenly, DeeCee started to chuckle.

"What?" Bakuda snapped. "What's so funny?"

"You really are small-minded, Bakuda," DeeCee scoffed. "All of this, just for _reputation_? To…what? Impress Skidmark and all of the other rejects? Everyone _else_ already thinks of you as the little girl who threw a tantrum just because she didn't get an A in math class."

I bit my lip and hoped that Lisa's plan didn't blow up — and in this case, it could even be _literally_ — in my face. I also hoped that my decoy's acting skills were sufficient enough to hit all of the points Lisa and I had talked about, earlier today.

The plan didn't necessarily rest on what DeeCee was doing now. It probably could have worked without it. However, the more distracted Bakuda was, the easier it would be to deal with her and the less chance she'd have to react or think up a counter. If she had a plan for me — or someone else, for that matter — coming through the warehouse windows and roof, then I needed her to not have a chance to enact it.

Perhaps a little ironically, DeeCee would be channeling _Emma_ to do her part.

"Shut up!" said Bakuda. "You have _no idea_ — "

"Did you think you could erase that, if you blew up enough stuff?" DeeCee cut across her. "Like everyone would just forget, if you blew up city hall or did something big enough? Maybe once you made a name for yourself, no one would even remember that the whole thing started when you flunked out of Cornell?"

Bakuda took a step forward, stomping one foot down. "Bitch!" she howled. "I said, _SHUT UP_!"

"That's what it's _really_ about, isn't it?" DeeCee goaded. "You made a stupid decision, and now you're making a _whole bunch_ of stupid decisions, each _dumber_ than the last, all so that you don't have to face up to the fact you're not as smart as you _thought_ you were. Tell me, Bakuda, _is_ there even a grade lower than an F?"

Bakuda was trembling, I could see it through my decoy's borrowed vision. I thought I could see her jaw working, but she wasn't talking at all.

"How _petty_ ," said DeeCee. Her lips curled into a sneer I had been seeing almost every day for the past two years. "Here I am, trying to make a difference, trying to help pick this city back up off of its knees, and all you're concerned about is making yourself _feel better_ , like it'll _change_ anything? Really?"

DeeCee shook her head. A throaty sound of disgust passed between her lips.

" _You're_ the speedbump, Bakuda," she spat. "All you're doing is getting in my way. I don't have time to waste playing your games or repairing your inflated ego. I have _real_ problems to deal with."

Bakuda swung her rocket launcher up and aimed it at my decoy, anger written into every line and angle of her body.

"You really need to learn when to shut the fuck up!" she snarled.

"Funny," DeeCee said casually, "I was about to tell you the same thing."

" _Now_ ," I whispered into the night, and all of the rest of me _moved_.

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

 **Using knowledge gleaned from Lisa with a tone and word choice learned by being Emma's metaphorical punching bag for almost two years... Bakuda's ego didn't stand a chance.**

 **I shouldn't need to say this, but ordinarily, Taylor would be nowhere near that good at tearing someone apart verbally. The first time, she got help from Medea. The second time, she's reading from a script Lisa gave her. If there's a third time, she'll be all on her own.**

 **Next chapter, things start to go... Well.**

 **As always, read, review, and enjoy.**

 **And for early access to chapters and bonus content:**

 **p a treon . com (slash) James_D_Fawkes**


	29. Collateral 4-5

**Collateral 4.5**

 _Thunder Feat_.

The sound of a dozen fists striking wood and concrete was, appropriately, like thunder. My duplicates and I lashed out as one with my martial art's deadliest technique, and unlike my fight with Glory Girl, the splintering boards that had been placed over the windows and even the crumbling walls that had been worn thin by the salty sea air and unrelenting rain cracked and shattered beneath our fists.

This was the Thunder Feat, the skill with which Cuchulainn had felled a thousand men. I was still only a novice in its use, still only utilizing a small portion of its true might, but even with that fraction of its power, no part of this decrepit warehouse was capable of resisting me. It might as well have been made of tissue paper, for all the difference it would have made against my fists.

In another time and another place, without the threat of being bombed or the city being destroyed one explosion at a time, it would have been thrilling to watch solid concrete be obliterated by my own two hands, but this was not that time and not that place.

Instead, as I came through the wall and bits of concrete and shards of wood spiralled around me, I focused in on Bakuda, who turned almost in slow motion. She swung her rocket launcher around, the end of it trailing her as she whipped around towards me. Whether she planned to use it or it was just a reflex reaction, I didn't know, and I didn't care to find out.

As soon as my feet touched down, I threw myself at her in a feat of acrobatics and agility that would have left the me of three months ago wide-eyed and open-mouthed. Bakuda was halfway through her turn when I slammed into her, driving my knees into her chest and using my weight and my momentum to push her to the ground.

The landing was jarring and almost dislodged me, sending my knees into Bakuda's shoulder joints, but I bounced and managed to stay atop her. I heard a crack like a gunshot, and Bakuda's scream came through her mask accompanied by a mechanical buzz. She floundered beneath me, jerking, throwing her head back and into the floor. A metallic clang echoed, and in the harsh lights, flecks of red blood splattered the walkway beneath her.

In a distant sense, I was aware of my other selves pouncing, as well, tackling their targets to the floor as more screams rent the air. As I rummaged about through the pockets built into my pants, more duplicates spawned of shadow and vapor and I absently sent them off to handle the extras my original twelve hadn't accounted for.

The seconds stretched impossibly long before my fingers wrapped around something round and hard, and I pulled out a quarter that I had prepared for tonight. It was smooth and featureless — pressed flat by Aife's raw strength — and carved into its surface was a series of runes that formed a spell of binding.

This was another part of the plan Lisa and I had worked out. There were plenty of ways I could have taken down Bakuda, if I was being honest, and if she really _had_ killed Dad, then maybe…

But that wasn't a step I wanted to take. So I needed something that could hold Bakuda without requiring me to switch heroes mid-fight and let the goons do as they pleased.

That was where Aife and her runic magic came in. It didn't need to be fancy, it didn't need to last years, and it didn't take hours, days, or weeks to make. Sure, it might've been better if I'd used a volcanic stone or a rock plucked from a clean, fresh water spring, but for a quick and dirty job, the five minutes to take a quarter, press it flat between my fingers, and carve a few symbols into it was good enough.

"Hold still," I told Bakuda, and I slid the quarter under the top edge of her mask, where it couldn't be dislodged, to press it against her forehead.

Bakuda jerked beneath me, groaning, and one of her legs moved. Then, suddenly —

 _BOOM_

An explosion went off inside the warehouse at the same time that one of my other selves vanished from the Delusional Illusion, and I startled, looking up, to find that a goon and one of my duplicates had been transformed into…was that _glass_?

It was like a sculpture, a perfect rendering of a man, pressed into the floor, with me perched atop him, holding him down with one hand and twisting his arms behind his back with the other. It glittered and shone, refracting the light from the ceiling and scattering it like raindrops. The only thing missing was his…head?

Petrification…? No, this wasn't turning them into stone, was it? I could see the resemblance to the effects of Medusa's eyes, but it wasn't exactly the same. This was more like…transmutation? The transformation of one material into another by changing its structural makeup? Nicolas would know for sure.

Either way, Bakuda had just used it to turn a _human being_ into glass.

Was _this_ what a Tinker who specialized in bombs could do?

"LEE!" she gurgled from underneath me.

My attention swung back to her, but barely a second later, I felt more than heard someone appear behind me, and as I twisted around and turned to face him, something swung out for my neck, skittering across the surface of my costume like a figure skater over ice. Faint gold sparks flickered in my peripheral vision — my base form's defensive shield had protected me.

He'd tried to kill me.

I lashed out, more instinct and muscle memory than an intentional response, and planted my fist in his gut with more strength than I really meant to. I had a bare moment, little more than a glimpse, to catch sight of his imposing mask, shaped in the visage of what must have been a Japanese demon, as he doubled over. Then, in between one blink and the next, his body exploded in a shower of grey ash.

Oni Lee. It had to be.

No sooner had I realized it than did the air shift again and a shadow loomed over me, and I leaned backwards and under the second swing of his knife. I watched it pass in front of my face, saw out of the corner of my eye one of Bakuda's legs, mangled and broken, and after it had gone, I swung myself forward and lashed out again.

For a second time, my fist found home in his belly, and for a second time, he exploded into ash. Beneath me, Bakuda gave another cry of pain, because the motion had driven my knees back into her shoulders. I paid her little mind, because Oni Lee had already reappeared, was already getting ready to attack me, again.

But I'd continued forward and into a crouch, and as Oni Lee's knife came back for me a third time, leapt up and back and over the blow like a spring, flipping in midair. I came down behind him on the balls of my feet with a little bounce, then backed away and put as much space as I dared between me and him.

Oni Lee hadn't been part of the plan. Lisa had been _sure_ that Bakuda wouldn't want to involve him, would want this to be _her_ debut, _her_ moment to make an impression. Bakuda wanted this to be her chance to make a name for herself, and having another cape on her side would take the focus off of her. Lisa'd been so sure of it that we hadn't even bothered to go over the possibility of him actually showing up.

She'd been _so damn sure_ … But then, even Lisa wasn't omniscient, was she?

I chewed on the inside of my cheek, watching as he turned to face me, silent as the grave, and stared at me through the black pits that made up his mask's eyes. The grinning, shark-toothed mouth leered at me from under the shadow of a pair of horns, and from under the bandolier of knives and grenades — some bearing the distinct look of Bakuda's work — peeked some kind of thin, armored vest. Probably kevlar. In his hand, he held a large, wicked-looking combat knife.

Which meant I didn't have any plans for how to fight him. Even back when I'd first started looking up the local villains, I'd earmarked him for later, for another time when I could focus entirely on him, because his power was the one that wasn't as simple and easy to handle as Including the right Noble Phantasm or Installing the right hero. I just hadn't ever actually gotten around figuring out a solution.

Sure, I could punch him and kick him all day, destroy every clone he threw at me. That was the problem — they were all clones, duplicates, temporary fakes. I wasn't hitting the real Oni Lee, so I was never doing any actual damage to him. If it was just a matter of waiting for him to get tired and leave, that was fine, I could do that all day.

I glanced back at Bakuda, only took my eyes off of Oni Lee for less than a second.

Unfortunately, I didn't have all day and I couldn't afford to let him distract me long enough for Bakuda to escape. That meant that I had to find a way to beat him and beat him quickly, all without — I checked briefly on my other selves, but with the racket that was loud enough to pierce the rumble of my pulse in my ears, I wasn't surprised to find that they were still in the process of subduing the goons Bakuda had brought with her. So I had to find a way to beat Oni Lee before Bakuda got the chance to escape _without_ swapping out my current hero, or else switch and risk finding out _exactly_ how bulletproof my shield was.

Terrific.

If I'd prepared another runestone… But no, that wouldn't have worked either, would it? I still ran into the same problem of needing to hit the _real_ Oni Lee for it to knock him out of the fight. Square one, just with one more option.

I took a calming breath and readied myself. If I was fast enough… How quickly did Oni Lee even teleport? If I was fast enough, I could catch him between one and the other.

Right?

I didn't have a better plan than that, at the time.

"The _fuck_ are you _waiting for_ , Lee?" Bakuda screeched. "Kill her! Kill her _now!_ "

Oni Lee's grip on his knife tightened, and then he was gone. I'd learned, though, and when he appeared behind me, I stepped back, threw up my right arm to catch him at the middle of his forearm, and then I sank my left elbow into his gut — and before I even felt the resistance of his body vanish, he was in front of me, again, not swinging, but stabbing with that huge combat knife towards my belly.

I twisted out of the way to avoid it, but he was too close and I wasn't quite fast enough, so it skittered over my costume again, sliding over the fabric of my vest like it was made of ice and throwing up gold sparks. I could feel the pressure of it as it curved around and past my hip.

I was already moving, twisting back around to deliver another punch, but before my fist even touched his mask, another of him was beside me and grappling with my other arm. The knife stabbed for me again, aimed and angled to slip through my ribs, and I stomped down with one foot, pushing myself backwards and wrenching him off balance. I took one more step back —

— and into the embrace of the duplicate that had appeared behind me. Before I even realized what was happening, he had grabbed me under the armpits and linked his hands behind my head. Barely had his fingers intertwined against my hair than did yet another duplicate appear in front of me, hefting that knife and pulling his arm back to stab.

But I hadn't been training as martial artist for nothing. The fighting style of the ancient Celts was one that focused on agility, speed, and flexibility, on hitting hard and fast and simply not being there for the return blow. It was, in many ways, far more acrobatic than anything I knew about Asian styles, and even then, I'd seen a few Jackie Chan movies with this kind of situation in it.

And, well, my base form had a minor Brute power. Automatically, things that normal people required tons of conditioning for to develop the muscle strength to pull off came much easier to me.

As the last duplicate came for me, I threw myself back and up with my legs, landing one foot in the advancing Lee's chin as the one holding me lost his grip and fell over backwards. I felt only the slightest twinge of remorse as I came down on his chest, stomping with both feet. He was only a duplicate, after all, a fake, and his lifespan was measured in seconds anyway.

As the duplicate beneath my boots exploded into ash like a popped balloon, I was surprised to find that the one I kicked had stumbled backwards and was rubbing faintly at his chin. The real one, it had to be.

My heart leapt. That was the _real_ one, not a duplicate, and he was distracted, if only for a moment. I need to press the advantage, put him out of the fight, _now_ , while I could be sure that he was the real Oni Lee and not one of the clones. I just needed to —

 _Clink_

I barely heard the noise, amidst all the rest of the chaos. It was like a pin dropping during a concert, and even when I thought back on the fight later, I had no idea how I'd managed to notice it, but I did.

When I looked down, there, sitting by my feet and lolling slightly to from side to side, was a grenade, and one of Bakuda's, to boot. For a few fractions of a second, as my heart stopped and I realized what it was, it gleamed up at me, all chrome and vaguely futuristic, and it seemed the most sinister, evil thing I had ever laid eyes on.

Contrary to the clink that I had barely heard, the click of the thing arming itself sounded thunderous.

"Shi —"

At the last possible moment, I managed to throw up my arms to guard my face and my head, and then the grenade went off with an echoing _BOOM_ , throwing me back with an incredible amount of force.

I was flying through the air for far longer than I really thought I should have been, and I landed roughly on my back on something hard and solid and whole — and it _hurt_. The air was driven from my lungs by the impact, and my head cracked against the ground, filling my vision with stars.

No, wait, those were _actual_ stars.

I gasped, heaving and trying to draw in air, and blinked up at the night sky. Around me, a pair of buildings jutted upwards to form a frame, and after a moment of staring dumbly at the sky, I realized that Bakuda's grenade had thrown me not only backwards, but out of the warehouse and into the alleyway behind it.

And it had _hurt_.

I shot up, scrambling to my feet, and tried to ignore how my back felt like one, gigantic bruise and how the back of my head throbbed from where I'd hit it. I patted down my stomach and my chest and my thighs, but I found nothing, and when I looked down, my front was entirely unscathed. Fortunately, that…I decided to call it a "force bomb." Fortunately, that force bomb and whatever shrapnel it had thrown at me hadn't actually done any real harm.

It _had_ gotten through my shield, though.

And…yes, _there_ , even as I watched, my defensive barrier shimmered back to life around my body. That force bomb had taken it down, if only for a few seconds. I had no idea exactly how much power had gone into it, but whatever it was, it'd been enough to pop my barrier like a soap bubble. I'd have been a goner, probably had my organs pasted and liquified, if I'd been a normal person.

 _Fuck_ , that was close, though. He'd almost —

Oni Lee was suddenly in front of me, holding another one of Bakuda's canisters. I had only a moment, little more than a second, to realize what he intended, then he released the trigger, and as I tried to leap away, it went off.

Time slowed around me. Oni Lee's motions started to lose speed, such that his fingers appeared as though they were moving through molasses. The light coming from the warehouse and from the stars above started to dim and turn red, and something tugged on my barrier as my leap carried me backwards. Even the sparks and flickers that it let off started to smear and change colors before my eyes.

I was the only thing still moving at normal speed, until I cleared the radius of the bomb's effects and landed further away down the alley. In front of me, a large sphere of altered space had formed, and everything inside of it was slowly dimming and turning red and fading away. It was like someone was dialing down a dimmer switch that only affected that one spot.

"Fuck," I breathed again What _was_ that? Did one of Bakuda's bombs just _freeze time_ for everything inside the blast zone?

That… That was _insane_.

I had no time to consider exactly how ridiculous it was, because Oni Lee was in front of me, again, swinging his knife for my neck. I didn't bother meeting him — I ducked under his arm, coiled my legs beneath me, then _jumped_ up and as high as I could go, and once I'd reached the apex, I used a jutting windowsill to propel myself even higher.

I landed on the roof of another warehouse, an old thing much like the others around me, made of brick and lined with gravel on the top. It would give me maybe a few seconds to get my bearings, a moment of breathing space to gather my thoughts.

And it was just a better idea, overall. Any idiot knew that explosives of any kind were always more dangerous in close quarters and tight spaces than they were out in the open.

Okay. So, obviously, I'd _vastly_ underestimated Bakuda. That was apparent, now. When I'd tried to imagine that she could do the sorts of things my casters could do, I obviously hadn't taken that thought seriously enough. Transmutation, a localized field that bent the fabric of space and time over her knee? It would be more accurate to say that she could do things with bombs that any single _one_ of my casters wouldn't be able to do.

Except maybe Medea. I hadn't explored her limits quite as thoroughly as I probably could have.

 _Not the point_ , I thought, scolding myself for straying.

Right. So, for sheer versatility, Bakuda could outmatch any of my individual casters. That was bad. On the other hand, it seemed that stuff that didn't pack enough _oomph_ to take out my barrier just didn't work on me. That was good. I didn't intend on testing _exactly_ how immune I was to something like that transmutation bomb or something that compressed space into a tiny dot or whatever, but I had a better chance of getting out of this if I screwed up.

What was _really_ tripping me up was —

Across from me, Oni Lee appeared atop another roof, suddenly and silently, and for a moment, he simply stared.

— him. The shell game he was playing with all of those duplicates, never risking his real body, spamming clones all the time, _that_ was what I was really having trouble with.

I started to reach for an Install, looking for a hero who could take him down effortlessly, but I'd barely started before I stopped.

The last time I'd used an Install for a fight, I'd destroyed an entire street. This was a _much_ tighter collection of buildings, collateral was a _much_ bigger concern, and even if they were thugs, I didn't want to take the chance that I might kill all of those people inside the warehouse. I didn't want to be a murderer, not for Lung, and not for any of these wretches.

Plus, the only thing holding any of those gangers in place was my duplicates' hands. The moment I switched, one of them could go to Bakuda's aid, and then she'd escape and have another shot at hurting, _killing_ Dad. If she'd been willing to go as far as threaten his life and bomb a bunch of innocent people just to get my _attention_ , there was no way she wouldn't go _at least_ that far in revenge for the leg I broke.

My hands curled into fists.

I needed to get back to her and finish what I'd started, and Oni Lee was the only thing getting in my way. His clones were making it difficult, impossible to take him out — but two could play at that game. I had about fifty of my own still in reserve. If I could leverage them to force him into position…

 _Fine. If that's the way you want to do this, I can do it that way, too_.

Oni Lee disappeared from the rooftop across from me, but I already knew his pattern, and as he appeared behind me, one of my own formed from shadow and vapor and crushed him before he could move. As the ash fluttered and fell, one, two, six more formed around me, positioned like an honor guard or the Secret Service.

He reappeared back on the rooftop he'd just left, regarding me with what I might have called caution, in another person. In someone like him, it could just as easily — and far more likely — have been a predatory examination of my weaknesses.

 _Come on_ , I thought. _Take the bait._

Movement. Oni Lee vanished, and suddenly, six more of him appeared around me and my own copies, one after the other. Before they could even pull the pins on the grenades they'd grabbed from their bandoliers, my other selves reached out and crushed them, too, and their ash joined the gravel at our feet.

I hadn't moved.

I swallowed nervously as my heart thudded anxiously in my chest.

 _Come on_ , I thought at him. _You're not gonna get me like that. Take the bait._

He was too fast for me to hit him between teleports, or at least, he teleported so quickly that he was already gone by the time I was reacting to his appearance. In that case, I needed to force him into a situation where he _couldn't_ teleport immediately, where he was there long enough for me to land a decisive blow.

For another long moment, Oni Lee observed me, again. I didn't dare take my attention off of him long enough to check on how things were going inside the warehouse.

Then, he vanished again, only this time, he didn't reappear around me, like he had before, and my heart leapt in my chest —

 _CRACK_

There was a sound like thunder, the sickening crunch of something hard and sturdy snapping and breaking, and suddenly, Oni Lee was lying face down on the rooftop in front of me. I felt my lips pull up into a grin.

Success.

I glanced over to my hidden duplicate, the seventh one who had slipped away while Oni Lee wasn't paying attention to her, and gave her a nod. She gave me her own grin, then promptly vanished, and the gravel she'd been holding in one hand as ammunition fell back into place.

The only direction he could attack from where I'd be sure he was the real thing, at least long enough to hit him, was above me. With six of me huddled close enough to protect me and each of them fast enough to take out one of his before they could pull the pin on a grenade, if he wanted to hit me at all, he needed to come from a direction I wouldn't be watching moving at speed with enough time to arm his grenade that I couldn't prevent it. The alternative would have been trying to swamp me with clones — except he had no idea that I had a limit on how many I could summon, either.

Cautiously, I approached Oni Lee, who was disturbingly still. If not for the subtle movements of his back as he breathed, I might have thought him dead. With the toe of one boot, I wedged my foot under his uninjured shoulder and carefully turned him over.

And then recoiled, startled, as he carelessly yanked on the pin of every grenade he could reach.

"Shit —"

Something slammed into me from the side —

 _BOOM_

— and then my world was thunder and force and crushing _silence_.

After a moment, I became aware of myself again. I had no idea how much time had passed, but it felt simultaneously like forever and less than a second. I blinked open eyes I hadn't realized I'd closed and found myself on my back, staring up at the sky, again. The gravel beneath my back was like salt in the open wound that was the bruise I'd just picked up minutes — hours? Days? — ago.

At first, there was no sound at all. My ears were stuffed with cotton, and I couldn't even hear myself breathe. Then, the ringing started, a shrill, high pitched whine that threatened to deafen me all over again. It was like someone had set a siren next to my ears, because that was all that I could hear.

I picked myself up and stumbled to my feet, clumsily, drunkenly, like I was just learning how to walk. My feet were unsteady beneath me, and my balance was so skewed that I was having a hard time figuring out which direction was up.

I shook my head to try and clear it, and _that_ was when the situation started to come back to me. Bakuda. The bombs. The goons in the warehouse. Oni Lee. Oni Lee _setting off almost all of his grenades at once, right in my face_. That _sonnuva_ —

"Hey, bitch!"

I turned towards the voice, my _enemy's_ voice, _Bakuda's_ voice. She stood in the hole I'd made in the warehouse, her rocket launcher hefted onto one shoulder as she used the wall to keep herself upright. Something whizzed past my face.

 _Clink_

"Chew on that, motherfucker!"

 _Clink-clink_

I turned back with what felt like agonizing slowness, and there, sitting innocently in the gravel, was another of Bakuda's bombs.

Maybe, if I'd been at this for longer, I might have done better. Maybe, if this was more than my third ever fight — only really my second, if you didn't count that thing with Glory Girl — I would have reacted faster. Maybe, if I'd been as experienced and if my instincts had been as honed as some of my heroes, neither Oni Lee nor Bakuda would have ever gotten the drop on me.

But I wasn't that experienced. I'd fought Lung, Glory Girl, and now I was fighting Bakuda and Oni Lee. I hadn't had the time for my responses to become instant and unthinking. I hadn't had the time to become _that_ good.

So by the time I was throwing myself off of the roof and away from the bomb, it had already gone off, and —

 _PAIN_

— the world melted away again.

For an eternity, the agony was all I felt. Liquid fire along every inch of skin, acid poured all over me, every single nerve prodded with a hot iron. I burned, hotter and hotter and hotter, like I was falling into the sun, like every bit of me was being seared away, like if I let it, even my mind would destroyed.

That broken arm had _nothing_ on this.

The landing was jarring, but I barely felt it. I was trying, desperately, hopelessly, to keep myself from falling over some invisible edge, from _breaking_ , and it felt like I was holding onto my sanity by my fingertips. After a moment, the sound of someone screaming, loud enough and shrill enough to wake the dead, started to pierce through the white hot agony of my torment.

It was another few seconds before I realized it was me.

Somehow, someway, I managed to hold on, even as I screamed until my throat was raw and aching. Even as the bruise on my back throbbed, now more painful than it had ever been, I managed to hold on. Even as I wished, _wished_ for something as sweet as an _end_ , I managed to hold on.

And then, finally, the agony began to fade, and I panted, out of breath and exhausted, as I came back to myself and my world became more than just me and that pain.

It was hard to focus. Even though the pain was starting to go away, my arms and legs still trembled from it. I felt as weak as a newborn and twice as vulnerable. A fly could have killed me, for all I could have stopped it, right then.

And as I forced my eyes open, forced myself to push past the remnants of the pain and try to _move_ , it was to find Oni Lee, ominous and demon-masked, standing over me with that enormous knife. One of his shoulders, it was plain to see, was in no condition to be used. My duplicate's Thunder Feat had shattered it, and the arm attached to it hung, limp and useless, at his side.

And yet, despite how much pain he was in, he made no sound, but for his slightly labored breathing. He merely hefted that knife, holding it as surely as ever, and his intent was clear. He was going to kill me, even if he had to stab and stab and stab until he had no strength left.

I wouldn't be able to stop him.

He took a step towards me, raising his knife, even as I tried frantically to back away —

And then, suddenly, a silvery cylinder erupted from his chest as though it had been there all along.

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

 **How Taylor's barrier works is something I actually thought out way, way, _way_ back when, before I even had an editor. This gives you an idea of exactly how powerful it is, and also exactly how easily it can be taken down.**

 **Any guesses for where that cylinder ad the end came from?**

 **As always, read, review, and enjoy.**

 **And for early access to chapters and bonus content:**

 **p a treon . com (slash) James_D_Fawkes**


	30. Collateral 4-6

**Collateral 4.6**

For a moment, neither of us moved. The span of a heartbeat or an hour, I couldn't tell. I could barely breathe, barely focus my eyes on Oni Lee and the cylinder now jutting out of his chest. It was a Herculean effort just to keep myself from collapsing, again. Every muscle in my body still trembled from the aftershocks of the agony that still hadn't quite left me. My brain still hadn't managed to get back in order enough for me to figure out what was happening.

Oni Lee seemed equally as perplexed. He stared down at the cylinder without any signs of comprehension, like he was utterly stunned and just couldn't put together how it had gotten there or why it was there in the first place.

My pulse pounded in my ears like thunder. The moment stretched out impossibly long, like a rubber band. The sound of my own breathing was like a whirlwind that whipped around my head.

Then, Oni Lee looked away from the cylinder and back to me. He reached up with his good hand, uncurling his top two fingers from around the handle of his knife, and made to grab the pins of several of the grenades strapped to his chest —

 _CRACK_

— and what had to be a rubber bullet smashed into his hand with pinpoint precision, snapping several bones like they were twigs. His knife clattered to the ground as he stumbled backwards, and he made the first sound I had heard from him the entire night: a long, low groan that did very little to convey the pain he had to be in.

My scrambled thoughts stretched and straightened, trying to grasp at coherency and understanding, but it was like trying to walk uphill with a boulder on my back. The cylinder, the rubber bullet, they _meant_ something, I knew they did, I knew I knew what they did, but I struggled to remember that _what_.

After a moment, Oni Lee turned back to me, again, staring at me through the gaping pits that were his mask's eyeholes, and I had no idea what he was thinking, what he was going to try and do without his knife, with one shoulder busted, and with the fingers in his other hand shattered like so much glass.

I didn't really get the chance to find out.

Oni Lee moved only the barest bit, his leg shifting to one side as he regarded me, sprawled on the ground, helpless and weak. _CRACK_ — and another rubber bullet slammed into his head, right between the eyes of his mask, and he jerked backwards and started to stumble…

And before he hit the ground, Oni Lee vanished into a cloud of ash.

He didn't appear again, not anywhere nearby. The knife he'd dropped was left to lie, abandoned, where it had fallen from his grip. Fortunately, he hadn't left behind any live grenades or anything like that when he left.

Panting, I tried to leverage myself up and stand. There was still something… Before… I had to… I had to… do _something_ …

There was a surety in my chest that there was something yet unfinished, something I still had to take care of, something I had to finish, to handle, but my scattered thoughts couldn't string together enough for me to remember exactly _what_. I only knew that it was urgent and I had to hurry.

The echoing rhythm of footsteps was like thunder over the sound of my breathing and the rapid tempo of my heartbeat, and they were coming closer. I put my utmost effort into pushing myself up, because there was an equal surety inside of me that I was alone, that it was an _enemy_ coming towards me, because this fight was one I'd had to undertake by myself, but my arm wobbled and my palm slipped and I crashed back to the ground, slamming my head against the pavement.

I felt no pain from the collision, but I had no idea whether that was because I was actually unhurt or because all of my pain receptors had been burnt out by… by…

Bakuda's bomb.

My heart jolted in my chest.

Bakuda. Bakuda's bomb. The explosions earlier today, the people who'd been killed, the threat on Dad's life, on _my_ life, the promise of retribution for Lung's defeat and capture, the threat to escalate if I didn't come alone, the warehouse, the goons, Bakuda _Bakuda_ _ **Bakuda**_ …

The memories slotted back into place, and I could remember, now, what I was doing there in that alleyway, why every part of me hurt so badly, what I still had to do, everything. My thoughts were still scattered and sluggish, like they'd been blown all over and were struggling to stand in the winds of a hurricane, but they were clear enough.

I needed to take down Bakuda.

"Kuh…"

I struggled against my wobbling arms and the weakness in my body, the shakes and aftershocks of that bomb that had left me almost completely undamaged, but lit on fire every nerve in my body. I pushed as hard as I could past it, forcing my elbows down and underneath me, and just doing something that simple and easy seemed then like a work of supreme effort.

And then, before I could even get more than a few inches up off my back, the footsteps drew up in front of me, and when I looked towards them, expecting to find one of Bakuda's goons come to finish me off, a flag-clad face looked back at me.

Miss Militia fell to her knees beside me, hefting in one hand a long rifle with a barrel too large for any ordinary bullet. My thoughts aligned and clicked together, and I realized that _she_ was the one who had shot Oni Lee, first with a tranquilizer dart and then again twice with rubber bullets.

And she'd probably saved my life doing so.

She let the barrel of her rifle rest on one knee and raised her off hand to the side of her head, pressing her fingertips against her ear.

"Armsmaster," she said, sounding more like the soldier she dressed as than the kindly woman who'd smiled at me that first night, "Oni Lee is in the wind. Right shoulder is injured, dislocation at minimum, and I got his other hand. He's likely not in any condition to engage you, but I'd still advise caution."

I watched her head turn as she swept her gaze up and down the alleyway. It wasn't long; the alleyway wasn't exactly a parking lot.

"No sign of Bakuda," she continued. "I've got eyes on the warehouse. Madison Street, north side. Lights are on. There's a large hole on my side, about twenty feet up. Size, shape…definitely a breach. Expect hostiles — I can hear them from here."

There was a moment's pause.

"I've got her, yes," she said. My heart skipped a beat — she was talking about _me_. "She's right here."

She looked at me, then, her eyes traveling up and down my body with a kind of clinical detachment.

"No visible injuries," she went on. "But she doesn't look okay. Shakes, general weakness — she seems to be having trouble standing. I don't think it's safe to leave her by herself."

Another pause.

"Understood. I'll leave Oni Lee to you, let Assault and Battery handle the warehouse. Tell them to expect a less than warm welcome, but I don't hear any gunfire. I'm not sure what's happening inside, sounds like a riot. Over."

After the last word, she turned towards me and leaned over, resting her free hand on my shoulder. She was so close that I could see the flecks of green in her eyes.

"Apocrypha. Can you hear me?"

I gave her the best nod I was capable of.

"Good. Are you injured? Hurt? What happened to you?"

"Ba-Bakuda," I rasped with effort. "P-pain…bomb…"

Miss Militia's brow knitted together, and for a second, she closed her eyes. "What kind of twisted mind…" I heard her mutter.

"Can you stand?" she asked a moment later. "Or do you need help?"

"I…" There was no point in trying to tough it out or put on a strong face. The answer was obvious. "No…"

I could see her frown in the way her brow furrowed. The large rifle she'd been hefting with one hand flashed with dark green energy and shifted forms into a simple pistol, which she holstered at her hip.

With her hands free, she reached for me, and with one, she grabbed my wrist and pulled one of my arms over her shoulders. With the other, she wrapped her arm around my back and took hold of the left side of my waist. My skin tingled numbly under her grip, a kind of pins and needles sensation, like when your arm fell asleep.

"Three," she murmured softly. "Two. One."

The moment she'd finished counting, she lifted me up like a ragdoll, and my feet scrambled for purchase on the ground as I tried to stand under my own power. I managed to get my heels under me and put my weight on them, and I thought I'd be able to keep myself upright.

But my knees buckled almost immediately, and I nearly collapsed straight back down. I would have, if Miss Militia hadn't kept hold of me, held me up.

"I've got you," she reassured me. "Don't push yourself. I've got you."

One hand let go of my wrist and went back up to her ear.

"Armsmaster. I've got her, but she's weak, can't even stand on her own, can barely speak. She said Bakuda hit her with some kind of pain bomb — however that works."

She stopped — to listen to Armsmaster, if I had to guess — then grunted.

"I don't think she's up to giving a report," Miss Militia said, but it sounded like a rebuke. "Like I said, she can barely speak. Right now, I'm the only thing keeping her upright. I'm not sure she has the strength to gives us any details about what's going on."

"D-duplicates," I managed to force out of my mouth.

"Hold on a second, Armsmaster." She turned her head towards me. "What was that?"

"D-duplicates," I repeated, trying to get the words out. "H-Hassan…of the…H-hundred Faces…can make _duplicates_."

She turned back away, and to Armsmaster, she said, "I don't know. Something about duplicates? It might be a new ABB cape, although the naming sounds wrong."

I grunted, screwed my eyes shut, and _focused_.

 **Delusional Illusion**

"Za…baniya."

From the shadows cast at our feet appeared two more of myself, ready and willing. Unlike me, they were completely and entirely unharmed and had no trouble standing.

There was a loud click from next to me, and when I looked, it was to see Miss Militia wielding a large, deadly looking pistol, which she aimed warily at my doubles.

"Hassan of the Hundred Faces," said one of them. It was…strange, hearing my voice coming from someone else's mouth. It was different when I was looking through their eyes, hearing through their ears, speaking through their mouths — it wasn't that different from doing it myself. Like this, though, it was just _unsettling_. "A Middle Eastern hero. His power is to split himself into about eighty different fractions, each one simultaneously independent and part of the greater whole."

After a moment of tension, Miss Militia lowered that huge handgun and regarded the one that had spoken.

"And you're one of those parts?"

My double — Deuce, I decided to call her — gave a slight shake of her head. "It's complicated. 'Part' isn't exactly…"

"Right. Duplicates, she — _you_ said." She gestured to me with a nod of her head. "Which means that this…"

"The original," Deuce confirmed. There was no point in hiding it. I wasn't expendable, and I didn't want Miss Militia to get the impression that I _was_.

"What happened?" Miss Militia asked.

"Bakuda," said Deuce.

"S-speaking of," I rasped, turning towards my other double — fuck, I just decided she'd be Tres. Keep things simple.

Tres nodded, and as I had that first night against Lung, I pushed into her head and joined with her, so that I was seeing from her eyes and hearing from her ears. I didn't leave my own body, but it _did_ distract me from the aches and pains left over from that bomb, at least a little.

The instant I was settled, Tres spun on her heel and took off, racing back down the alleyway with speed. The brick and mortar around her blurred and bled together, and as she came upon the big, black ball that was the area of altered space-time left behind by Bakuda's bomb, she flung herself up and towards one of the warehouses that framed it, angled herself, and bounced off the wall like some kind of human rubber ball.

Watching it as a spectator, it really was incredible. Was _this_ what Amy had meant, about how impossible and superhuman it was?

"Bakuda?" asked Miss Militia.

"Yeah," replied Deuce. "We…ambushed her ambush, I guess? Distracted her to get everyone in place, then went through the walls. We managed to get the drop on her and her goons, like that."

Tres hit the pavement, then took three long steps and kicked off the ground again. Up she went, five, ten, fifteen, twenty feet, and she landed inside the hole and on the walkway, back where I'd started this fight, where I'd been when that force bomb had thrown me out of the building. She swung her gaze around, letting me see the inside of the warehouse, again — no Bakuda. The goons were still there, still struggling, and the duplicates I'd set to holding them down were still holding them down, but of their boss, there was no sign.

Damn it.

No, I couldn't let her escape.

" _Through_ the walls?"

"Yes, through them." Let the Protectorate stew on how I managed that one. "It…seemed like a better idea than charging in through the front door."

There. The front door. It was ajar, left wide open. Maybe, if she'd had more time and had been in better shape, Bakuda might have done it as a distraction, a red herring, and gone out a side door or something. With that broken leg, though, there was no way she had the time or the focus to do something that clever to throw off anyone following her.

Tres vaulted over the railing and landed on the floor below, then made a beeline for the front door, weaving her way around the bodies struggling to escape on the ground. The glass statue that had once been a human being and one of my copies still stood off to one side.

"Then?"

Deuce shifted slightly. "I… We had her pinned. Broke one of her legs on the way down. We…almost had her, there."

"Until Oni Lee showed up."

"Until Oni Lee showed up," Deuce agreed.

The street was dark when Tres made it out the front door. Even the bright lights from inside, spilling out through the doorway and the holes we'd made on our way in, did little to make it brighter. Tres looked around, stepping cautiously out onto the sidewalk and then the road, but there was no sign of Bakuda. Up the street, nothing. Down the street, nothing. In the distance, the low buzz of a helicopter echoed.

Then — movement. A flutter, a rustle on the wind, barely audible. Tres dashed down the street, and there, hidden away in one of the alleyways, was a shape large enough to be a car, covered in a tarp that was being removed. A moment later, a limping, panting figure, one leg twisted and obviously broken, came around it.

If I'd been capable of it then, I would have smiled. Tres _did_.

 _Found you_.

"He managed to tag me with some kind of…force bomb or something, knocked me clear out of the warehouse. Almost got me with a…a time-freeze bomb, too."

Miss Militia startled. "A _time-freeze_ bomb?"

Deuce gestured in the direction of the black ball in the middle of the alley. "That thing."

Tres rushed forward and was suddenly on the other side of the street, just a few feet from Bakuda, who turned and shrieked.

"Get away, you bitch!" she screamed. "Get away!"

Tres didn't listen or reply. She just grabbed Bakuda, hauled her up, and threw her out onto the street. Bakuda hit the asphalt with another scream, jostling her broken leg in what had to be a very painful manner. After everything she'd done to me, I couldn't bring myself to care.

Tres tore away the tarp, revealing a jeep parked in the alleyway, squeezed between the two buildings. Bakuda's getaway vehicle, no doubt. With that rocket launcher she'd been toting around… Yeah, I could picture her riding around, shooting her bombs at stuff with a startling clarity.

"You can't," Bakuda was saying as Tres stalked back to her. She was trying to drag herself away with her arms, but she hadn't gotten very far. "You can't kill me! You can't! If you do, every bomb I've made goes off! All of them! All over the city!"

I didn't plan on killing her. Even after everything she'd done…no, I didn't want to take that step. I didn't want to become _that person_. Tres said nothing, but went to work securing Bakuda to the tarp. Bakuda continued to scream, shouting profanities and promises of vengeance once she realized Tres wasn't going to strangle her in the middle of the road.

"Got her," I muttered, and left my double's head.

I blinked, and I was back in the alleyway with Deuce and Miss Militia, who looked to me.

"Apocrypha?"

"Bakuda," I managed. "C-captured…Bakuda."

We heard the yelling a minute later.

"— kill you! Do you hear me?! I'm gonna get you for this, you bitch! You and your old man! You think that last bomb was something?! That was _nothing_ compared to what I'm going to do to you! Nothing!"

Tres appeared from around the side of the warehouse, dragging Bakuda behind her by her good leg. The only comfort Bakuda had been given was that she was wrapped up in the tarp that had covered her jeep, so she wasn't being pulled across the pavement without anything protecting her. It was more than I thought she deserved.

Tres brought her along and stopped a few feet away, then let go and let Bakuda flop to the ground. Bakuda let out another yowl as her broken leg landed, then quickly transitioned back to her stream of cursing.

"— ucking bitch! When I'm done with you, you're gonna _wish_ you'd let me kill you, tonight! Hear me?! A whole new _world_ of pain and suffering! Like nothing you've ever _fucking seen_!"

I grunted and pushed myself away from Miss Militia — only made it two steps before my legs gave out. Deuce and Tres were there to catch me, each offering me a shoulder to prop myself up with, and with their help, I managed to hobble my way over to Bakuda. She snarled up at me, spitting furiously, but a lot of it was lost behind the blank, featureless face of her mask.

"You're gonna _beg_ me for mercy, bitch! Beg! And I'll say no and keep on going! Your old man will go fucking first! I'm gonna do to him things that make fucking _Bonesaw_ look cute and cuddly! Turn his insides into his outsides! Flay him alive! Make a bomb _just_ for him! And I'll make _you_ watch the whole _fucking time_!"

Carefully, Deuce and Tres lowered me back to the ground. Bakuda squirmed as I kneeled over her, and with one shaking hand, I reached up to the top edge of her mask, where the runestone I'd made from a quarter was still wedged against her forehead, and pressed my thumb against it.

"Tosaigh."

There was a flash and a crackle as the runes ignited and burned and activated, and immediately, Bakuda's constant spewing of vitriol cut off as the binding spell locked her voluntary muscle groups. She breathed, her heart beat, she could probably even move her eyes and make basic vocalizations. However, she no longer had any control over things like her tongue or her vocal cords or her arms and legs.

She was completely and utterly helpless.

I pushed myself backwards and stumbled as I tried to stand, but Tres and Deuce were there to catch me, again, and they half-carried me towards the wall on the other side of the alley, where they carefully helped me sit down. I sighed and let my head fall back to rest against the cool brickwork.

It wasn't quite over, yet, but the big part was done. I'd captured Bakuda. She couldn't threaten me or Dad anymore.

"…Apocrypha?" Miss Militia ventured tentatively.

When I opened my eyes, she was crouched in front of me, far enough away not to crowd me, but close enough to offer her help if I asked for it.

"Yeah?" I croaked.

God, I felt weak, though. The worst of it was starting to pass, but it was still an effort and a half to do _anything_.

"What did you do to her?" she asked. "To Bakuda?"

"B-bound her. Locked…volun…voluntary movements."

"Is it…permanent?"

"N-no." I gave a slight shake of my head. "Should last…a-about an hour…or two."

"Good." She gave me a nod, then turned and scooted over to sit down next to me. One hand went back up to her ear. "Armsmaster. Bakuda's in custody. One broken leg, but otherwise unharmed. Apocrypha used some kind of Striker effect to temporarily disable her, so we need a containment team to handle her."

She paused a moment.

"No, I don't see —"

"LOOK OUT BELOW!"

Miss Militia and I both looked upwards, and from out of the sky dropped two figures — one, a blur of red, landed nearby with little more than a muted _thump_ , while the other, a blur of gray and white with electric blue streaks, landed on a rooftop and immediately sped off. The red blur resolved into a man, lean and tall, wearing red body armor and an equally red visor that covered the top half of his face.

He grinned at us and offered a mocking salute.

"Yo, M&Ms, wish I could stay and chat, but I've got some mooks to deal with, so I gotta jet! Talk to you later!"

And then he was gone.

Miss Militia sighed. "Assault," she said by way of explanation.

"O-oh."

I didn't have any idea what I was supposed to say to that.

Her hand went back up to her ear, "Armsmaster. Yeah, I just saw Assault and Battery. They're on the scene. They decided to drop in."

Almost against my will, I felt myself starting to smile.

She glanced over at me.

"She's still here, yes. Recovering. I'm not sure she'll be up to it. We might have to call in Panacea."

Amy. My heart leapt in my chest, then settled in my stomach. No. I wasn't ready to see her, again, after yesterday. Not with how things had been when she left. Would she refuse to heal me? Would she tell the Protectorate about Lisa, about the promise and the geis and Coil? It certainly seemed like she hadn't, yet, but if it was right in her face, again, would she still keep her silence?

I didn't know. I didn't really want to find out.

"N-no," I rasped.

"Hold on, Armsmaster. Apocrypha?"

"C-can…heal myself," I managed. "J-just…as soon as…Assault 'n Battery…"

Miss Militia's brow furrowed, and then she looked away from me and down the alleyway towards the warehouse. "Assault, Battery, what's it look like in there?"

In the pause that followed, I closed my eyes and reached out to my other duplicates, to the ones that were in the warehouse and holding down all of Bakuda's goons. It was a little nauseating, seeing, hearing from that many perspectives all at once. After I'd ensured that they all still had their goons subdued, I switched to one near the door and had her look around, get a better view of things from a single angle.

Assault stood in the middle of all the madness, head swiveling as the woman in grey and white, Battery, went from goon to goon, tying their wrists with zipties. In hindsight, bringing some of those along might have been a good idea, but I had no clue whether or not they'd vanish with my duplicates if I had, and the middle of combat wasn't the best of places to be testing out things like that.

"Hey, M&Ms, what kind of powers does the new girl have, again? Because unless she's got a whole bunch of identical twins…"

In my real body, I heard Miss Militia say, "You weren't paying attention at the briefing?"

Battery snorted. "What else is new?"

Assault gasped theatrically and spun towards her, hand flying to his heart. "Honeybuns, I'm hurt! I always pay attention!"

"To Farmville, sure."

"That hurts, Honeybuns." He patted his chest. "Right here. Gets me right through the heart."

Miss Militia gave a little chuckle. "In any case, Assault, yes, that's one of Apocrypha's powers. I take it Bakuda's underlings are all handled but the wrapping?"

"'Handled' is the word for it," said Assault. "She's got them all pinned and subdued. It's kind of boring, actually. The only thing we have to do is get them tied up."

"The only thing _I_ have to do, you mean," Battery interjected wryly. "All _you're_ doing is standing around."

"I'm surveying the situation!" Assault claimed, grinning. "Just like they teach us in those seminars, Honeybuns, remember?"

"Oh, so you _can_ pay attention."

"When I want to." The smile slipped away. "There _is_ something strange, though. I'm looking around and I'm noticing, there's a lot of people here that I wouldn't have expected to see."

"Like?" Miss Militia asked.

"Old people," was the answer. "A couple of salarymen, it looks like. There's a guy here who has to be pushing sixty. Another guy who looks like he just came home from a day at the office. Even a couple of kids that can't be older than ten or eleven. I didn't realize the ABB had that big of a draw."

For a moment, as they fell silent, I started to look myself and realized he was right. There _were_ people who didn't look like they could possibly be ABB regulars. Middle-aged men who had the clean-cut look of salarymen. A couple of older folks in their fifties. Even, as Assault had said, a kid or two younger than _me_.

Why would _they_ …

"Maybe," Miss Militia said quietly, "Bakuda threatened them, too. Them and their families."

I suddenly felt sick to my stomach.

So these people…the entire time, they'd been… And I just took them down, without even thinking about it? What about that guy she'd blown up, the one who'd been turned to glass alongside one of my duplicates? Had _he_ been a…a _conscript_ too? Some innocent man, dragged out of his home in the middle of the night and told to either work for Bakuda or have his family turned into ash?

"I guess it looks that way, huh?"

There was no humor in his voice, now.

"Handle them as gently as you can, Assault. That's all we can do for them until this whole thing is sorted out."

"Ain't that the truth…"

They continued in silence, visiting each of the people I'd pinned and methodically binding their arms behind their backs. A few minutes later, when they were done, I let out a sigh and relaxed.

"Release."

Deuce, Tres, and all of the other mes in the warehouse, they all vanished as I let go of the Hundred-Faced Hassan. There was a brief burst of noise from beside me, and Miss Militia winced and held her ear.

"Everything's fine, Assault. Apocrypha is just…changing powersets, I think."

I reached out, and my first instinct was to pull on Medea, the caster who had become my mainstay, who could heal as well as she could destroy, but just as I was about to, I stopped and considered that it _might_ be a bad idea to pull out a hero who had problems with betrayal while sitting next to someone who…I wasn't sure hadn't betrayed me.

I still didn't know if they'd known about Sophia.

Instead, I grabbed someone more reasonable, someone more level-headed and calm.

"S-set. In-Install."

Immediately, I shrunk down almost ten inches. My hair straightened out, then everything behind my ears gathered itself into a braided bun. My vambraces turned into gauntlets. My bodysuit became a blue dress trimmed in gold. My vest became a cuirass and tassets. My boots became greaves and sabatons. The heart beating in my chest shuddered and strengthened, pumping liquid fire through my veins.

And most importantly, the divine sheath that ensured I would never spill a drop of blood got to work, healing my frayed and damaged nerves and smoothing out the tears in my muscles I'd caused in my thrashing.

Miss Militia was looking at me.

"Apocrypha?"

"Be at ease, Miss Militia," I told her. "There are few things more effective at healing than my sheath."

Immediately, I felt my face flush. Maybe I'd drawn a little _too_ deeply on Artoria's personality.

"Ah, that is to — I-I mean," I corrected myself, "it's, uh, you don't need to worry about me. A-Arthur's sheath will take care of everything."

"Arthur?" She paused and looked me up and down, and a skeptical line drew across her brow. " _King_ Arthur?"

"Af…ter a fashion, yes," I said. I wasn't quite sure how I could explain the whole thing, or, for that matter, my own confusion about whether or not these had once been _real people_ , let alone if I _wanted_ to. "Um, it's complicated?"

I saw her smile in the crinkle of her eyes. "So it would seem, yes."

We fell into silence, after that, as I waited for my — _Arthur's_ sheath to do its work. Over the minutes, the aches started to fade away, the tremors and the shaking began to stop, and slowly, it felt like I was gaining back my strength.

It was incredible, really, how quickly and easily my body was being healed. Damage that I might never have fully recovered from on my own was being repaired just by sitting there and letting Avalon do its work.

When it felt like my legs could support me again, I pulled them up beneath me and tried to stand.

It was effortless.

I didn't think, then, that I would ever take for granted the ability to just stand under your own power ever again. Not after having been without it, having been so weak and so feeble that I needed another person to hold me up just so that I didn't collapse immediately.

I held up a hand, armor clinking, and clenched my fist, testing my strength. Still not quite recovered. Good enough to fight, though. Good enough that it wouldn't hold me back too much.

"Apocrypha?" I turned back to Miss Militia. "Everything okay?"

"It's fine," I assured her. For lack of a better way to put it, I added, "Just stretching my legs."

"Back to normal, then?"

I frowned.

"Not quite. But close enough."

Although why that mattered to her… But maybe that was unfair. Miss Militia had never been anything but kind to me, and for all that I suspected the PRT and Protectorate's complicity in Sophia's wrongdoings, I still didn't _know_ , one way or the other. If I was honest with myself, I was afraid to ask.

If even the warmth and kindness they had showed to me that night was nothing more than a veneer, a _mask_ , then who and what was I supposed to trust, anymore?

A king must have a righteous heart. All else originates thence.

At the very least, I supposed I could hold onto the fact that I wasn't wrong, whatever they tried to tell me. _I_ was Sophia's victim, and it was her arrogance and cruelty that had gotten her killed. I refused to suffer another Blackwell, another person who insisted _I_ was the bully for standing up for myself.

"Good," said Miss Militia. "Then, are you able to stay for a little while longer? Armsmaster would like to speak with you."

My heart skipped a beat and I hesitated.

Armsmaster…wanted to speak to _me_?

I was almost tempted to say no and leave. It had been a long night and a lot had happened. Artoria was fresh and full of energy, but I just wanted to be done with it and climb into bed. Even though the damage was being healed and I'd be as good as new, it wasn't easy to just walk off something like that pain bomb as though it had never happened.

And when I thought about what Armsmaster could want with me…not much came to mind. To try and pitch the Wards again? Somehow, I doubted I'd made a strong enough impression or a powerful enough bond that he was coming to _make sure I was okay_.

But…

No king is a kingdom unto himself.

There was really no reason not to hear him out, in the end.

"I can wait," I told her.

"Thank you," said Miss Militia. "He should be here —"

At that moment, light flashed from the end of the alleyway, and with a nearly silent purr, a large motorcycle, carrying with it a familiar figure in blue and silver armor, pulled up in our direction.

"— shortly." Beneath her breath, I heard her add, "Speak of the devil…"

 _And so he appears_.

Armsmaster swung himself off with not quite as much grace as he had Monday night, looking a little more awkward without the additional momentum to make the motion smoother. The kickstand clicked out automatically, and the beast of a bike seemed to catch itself on it without any help from its rider.

"Miss Militia," he greeted her a little stiffly.

"Armsmaster."

He turned, then, to me and regarded me somewhat more carefully. "Apocrypha?"

"Yes?" I answered.

His head swiveled back around to Miss Militia, who told him, "King Arthur."

He glanced in my direction again, then back to Miss Militia, who gave him a helpless shrug that seemed to encapsulate the phrase, 'It's complicated.' I didn't imagine it'd be any clearer if I tried to explain _that_ incident, either, where Merlin had…Well. Mordred had to come from _somewhere_.

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

 **There were some parts of this chapter that I thought felt a little weak, but it is what it is. Getting through this part actually took longer than I thought it would, so the conversation with Armsmaster was cut off and saved for 4.7.**

 **Also: Taylor has not yet found out about the bombs in people's heads thing, as the lack of mention in this and preceding chapters should show, although she's been given a hint. When and if she does, her reaction will be appropriately horrified.**

 **As always, read, review, and enjoy.**

 **And for early access to chapters and bonus content:**

 **p a treon . com (slash) James_D_Fawkes**


	31. Collateral 4-7

**Collateral 4.7**

In spite of whatever thoughts he might have had regarding the form of the hero I had taken — whether they were doubts, surprise, or simple curiosity — Armsmaster did not express them in any open or obvious way. Aside that first glance, he moved past the idea that Arthur was a petite blonde with remarkable speed.

Where others might have at least questioned it, Armsmaster took the whole thing in stride.

He inclined his head to me, just the slightest. It must have felt ridiculous, considering we'd been much, much closer to eye level, the last time we'd talked.

"Apocrypha," he said in that gruff voice of his, "are you well?"

"As I can be," I replied, perhaps a little more coolly than necessary. "All things considered."

 _Do you want me to describe to you exactly how agonizing that bomb was? Satisfy your curiosity?_ But that was a nasty, unfair thought that wasn't worth voicing. Maybe if I'd still been collapsed on the ground, unable to even stand or talk, it would have been more justified, but not standing there as I was, whole and calm and apparently undamaged.

"Good." He punctuated this with a strong nod, as though I was a waiter that had just told him his meal would be ready on time. "That's good."

…That couldn't be all he wanted, could it? Just to check up on me and make sure I was okay? That was something you sent a _get well soon_ card for, not something you absolutely needed to ask in person, and most certainly not something you needed to ask a veritable _stranger_ in person.

"Miss Militia," I began slowly, "said you had something you wanted to speak with me about?"

"Yes," he answered simply. "Yes. I needed to speak with you…regarding the incident earlier this week."

Artoria's strength and calm allowed me to keep my emotions off of my face, but behind that cool facade, my thoughts raced. An incident earlier in the week… There were really only two things he could be talking about — the bank and Sophia — and neither one of them boded well.

"Incident?" I asked with a composure I didn't feel.

"Armsmaster," interjected Miss Militia, "is this really the time or place for this?"

"The longer it's left to wait, the greater the odds of an unfavorable resolution," Armsmaster said. "Better to handle it now, in a timely fashion."

"But at twelve-thirty a.m. in the middle of an abandoned alleyway?"

"If not now, then when?" was his reply. "After she's encountered Hookwolf? After she's fought Fenja and Menja? After she's confronted Kaiser? Will any of those be a better time?"

For a minute, Miss Militia didn't reply. Then, she sighed. "Fine," she said at length. "Just, give me a minute, before you go talking about active criminal investigations."

She stepped around us and to the other side, then reached down and grabbed hold of the paralyzed Bakuda, who I had quite forgotten was even still there. Without pomp, circumstance, or ceremony, she dragged Bakuda further down the alleyway and out of earshot.

"Thank you," Armsmaster said awkwardly when she came back to us. "I had forgotten…"

"I noticed," Miss Militia told him dryly.

She walked back around to where she'd been before and stepped out of the way. She said nothing else, and Armsmaster seemed to take that as unspoken approval, because he turned his attention back to me and stared for a long moment, as though he was trying to find out how to start.

"We…" he began haltingly. "We know how…Shadow Stalker died."

My heart skipped a beat inside my chest — that was what I'd been dreading. I kept my face schooled in a mask of calm. Artoria certainly helped.

"Oh?"

Even still, I couldn't quite keep the quiver out of my voice. If he noticed it, he gave no indication.

This was not the worst case scenario I could possibly imagine, but since "the worst" was them calling the Triumvirate to take me in and to the Birdcage, that wasn't saying much.

"We know that you were…involved in her death."

A nice way to put it. But I didn't have the patience for dancing around it, just then — if this conversation was going to happen, I didn't want this drawn out, roundabout nonsense. Best to get directly to the point.

"That I killed her, you mean?"

There was no guilt in me, only a cold certainty. I had no tears to shed over what had happened to Sophia Hess.

"…Yes," Armsmaster admitted.

"Are you looking for an apology?" I asked quietly. "Some sign of guilt or regret? For me to cry about how it wasn't my fault, I didn't mean for it to happen, and that I'm sorry she's gone?"

"No," Armsmaster said. "We heard your witness statement. We checked the records at Winslow. Compared the data. We're well aware that there was…no lost love between the two of you."

Which meant they knew. _They knew_. To mention Winslow, to mention my witness statement like that, a witness statement that I had given as _Taylor Hebert_ …

My jaw clenched. There was something cold in my chest, spreading through my veins.

They knew who I was under the mask.

"So?" My mouth felt like it was moving of its own accord, like someone else was using it to speak through me. "Do you intend to arrest me, then? Put me on trial for murder?"

"No," he told me. "Given the evidence collected at the scene and on Shadow Stalker's person, the records of the past two years indicating a pattern of violence and abuse, and the information we have gathered thus far, the PRT has determined this to be a case of self-defense. We do not intend to pursue any charges, criminal or otherwise."

"Really?" I couldn't have kept the skepticism out of my voice if I'd tried. "And why should I trust you, now? Now, after everything she did under your nose? Now, after you just admitted that you shattered the unwritten rules and unmasked me?"

I'd had my trust broken too many times, now, to believe in him so easily. Maybe, a week ago, that Monday night, I could have given him the benefit of the doubt.

But not now. Now, Lisa had manipulated me. Now, Bakuda had proven that the unwritten rules only applied to those who chose to follow them. Now, Sophia was Shadow Stalker and she had tried to come into my house in the dead of night and kill me.

I had no generosity to spare.

Finally, he spoke.

"…Are you familiar with the protocols of the Endbringer Truce?"

Endbringer Truce? I'd heard, vaguely, of it, and Lisa had said a few things on the subject a couple of days ago. It was law, she'd told me, complete with legal precedent and ramifications, unlike the unwritten rules, which were more of an informal agreement not to go too far.

But…the subject of the exact mechanics of it and how infractions were punished hadn't really come up. Lisa herself might not have even known, since I doubted she'd ever been to an Endbringer battle — and, once I thought of it, I doubted Coil would have let her, even if she'd wanted to.

"No," I told him simply.

"The law built into the Truce is designed to prevent division and promote unity amongst the fighters," he explained. "The people who fight don't always… _get along_ , normally. Sometimes, rivals or enemies are forced to fight together for the common cause of stopping the Endbringer. In the early days, before the Truce was finalized, there were some… _incidents_. Villains taking advantage of the situation to attack their enemies or discover their identities."

Oh. Yes, I could certainly see how that was bad. Endbringer battles were uphill enough without including rivalries and backstabbing; if heroes (or villains, for that matter) thought that the guy next to them was going to stab them when they weren't looking or go peeking under the mask while they were injured, no one would want to turn up at all, would they?

I…didn't see what this had to do with them finding out my identity, though.

"The Truce was designed to prevent that," Armsmaster continued. "However, it could not eliminate such occurrences entirely — accident or not, it still occurred. Therefore, a provision exists in the Truce, in the case that one cape discovers another's identity while it's in effect. The cape in question can either be sent to the Birdcage…or he can share his identity with the cape he unmasked."

Armsmaster reached up for his helmet, and my heart skipped a beat. I felt my eyebrows raise a little and my mouth begin to fall open. Was he really going to…?

"Armsmaster!" Miss Militia snapped sharply.

"You won't convince me not to!" barked Armsmaster back over his shoulder. " _I_ discovered her identity! Therefore, _I_ must make amends for it!"

Miss Militia's brow furrowed, and she looked very much like she wanted to disagree, but rather than argue or debate the subject, she subsided and folded her arms. The pistol she'd been wielding earlier shifted rapidly between an Uzi, a handgun, and a wicked-looking combat knife.

When he was sure she wasn't going to object further, Armsmaster turned back to me and reached back up for his helmet. There was a pneumatic hiss and several clicks as whatever clamps or latches he'd built to ensure his helmet didn't fall off at an inopportune moment released, and then, he lifted it off of his head.

My first thought was that he was surprisingly handsome, and yet at the same time, utterly normal. His hair, like his beard, was brown and cropped short, and his eyes were an unremarkable brown. His nose was perhaps a little more prominent than his visor might have led me to believe, but not grotesquely large, and the strong jaw was already on display normally, so there was no surprise there.

Oddly, I was both relieved and disappointed. Relieved, because he was only human, in the end, only a man, and yet disappointed, because looking up at him as a young girl, having him as a hero to look up to, it felt like he should have been divinely, impossibly handsome, with a countenance to match the Greek gods.

"Colin Wallis," he introduced himself shortly.

Well met.

My respect for him rose a few notches. I wasn't sure I'd ever get back to the level we'd been at on Monday, but that he was willing to go _this far_ spoke well of him and his character. _He really is a hero_ , was the thought I'd had, back then, and I could almost believe it again. _Almost_. But…

There was just one more thing that stood in the way.

"Taylor Hebert," I replied quietly. "But then, you already knew that."

"I did," he said. Somehow, it sounded like _I'm sorry_ , even though he didn't say the words.

"There's just one thing I want to know, Armsmaster," I told him.

"If I can answer it, I will," he replied, putting his helmet back on. The latches and clasps clicked back into place.

"Did you know?" I asked pointedly. "You, the PRT, the Protectorate, _whoever_ was in charge of watching out for her, _you_ , who worked with her… Did you know what Sophia was doing — to me, to all of the other people she tormented?"

His lips pulled into a thin line. I might even have called it angry.

"No," he said firmly. "No, we did not. The issue is currently under investigation, to determine who or what failed and enabled her to act in such a manner. Her handler will be brought up for review, and the staff at Winslow will be questioned to determine their level of complicity."

I…believed him, I thought. Or at least, I wanted to, and I could afford to give them enough benefit of the doubt to wait and see what would happen to the likes of Blackwell. It was more appealing than believing that the heroes had knowingly allowed a psychopath to run rampant.

But that led to one more question, equally as important.

"Just…one more thing, then." I looked at where I thought his eyes would be. "If you _had_ known, if you _had_ found out before she died…what would you have done?"

"She was in violation of the terms of her probation," he answered gruffly. "Per the original deal worked out by the courts…she would have been remanded into PRT custody, until such time as a hearing could be arranged. If the courts decided that she had, indeed, violated her probation, she would have been sent to a juvenile detention facility to serve out the rest of her term."

In other words, justice would have been served, and I would have been free of her. Something like relief uncoiled in my belly. The knowledge that I wouldn't have been abandoned, just so that they could have one more hero on the streets, was like a balm to an old scar that would never quite heal.

I almost asked about Emma, too, but she was a normal girl, so she probably didn't fall under PRT jurisdiction.

"Thank you," I said sincerely.

It wasn't perfect. Trust was a hard thing to repair, and even with this, I couldn't say I trusted the Protectorate or the PRT enough to consider becoming one of them, now. But…at the very least, I could say that it wasn't malicious, that they had never borne me ill will, that Sophia hadn't been entirely their fault, and that…that was important.

I looked back at them.

"What now?"

Armsmaster shifted, but it was Miss Militia who answered.

"Now," she said, "we wait for the containment team to get here. Once Bakuda has been foamed and loaded up, she'll be taken back to PRT headquarters to await trial. Ordinarily, if she's found guilty," — not that any of us actually doubted that — "then she'll be sent to a prison with security to match her threat. For Bakuda, however…"

"She'll get the Birdcage," Armsmaster grunted. "Considering the severity of what she's done, the threat she poses —"

"The flagrant violation of the unwritten rules," Miss Militia added.

"— the judge and the DA probably won't want to take any chances."

Oh. That was right. _Bakuda_ knew who I was, too, didn't she?

To allow the enemy a grave advantage is to lose the battle before it has begun.

And she could tell _anyone_. Anyone she liked, as much as she liked. With a personality like hers, so much like Morgan le Fey, so jealous and hungry and _petulant_ , I didn't put it past her to tell even her worst _enemies_ , if it meant she could get back at me. Not after I'd taken her down, broken her leg, and beat her at her own game.

And if, by some cruel twist of luck, she managed to escape? If she and Lung managed to free themselves, or if Oni Lee — crippled though he was — managed to get them loose, somehow? Lisa had once called the PRT cells "revolving doors," and whether that was a remark about the quality of the PRT's cells or the capacity of villains to break out of all but the most secure of places, it didn't matter. If she was right, and the PRT couldn't hold onto Bakuda and Lung?

Then Dad and I would be in danger again, because Bakuda could just tell him where we lived.

"Release."

I let Artoria go — and _staggered_ at the sudden weakness.

"Apocrypha!" two voices cried, and I held up a shaky hand to ward them off.

"I'm…I'm okay," I said a little unsteadily. "Just…wasn't expecting to lose that much strength."

I _should_ have, though. I was _not_ Artoria. I _didn't_ have an already incredible healing ability, further augmented by a sheath that healed all wounds, to compensate for the final remnants of that pain bomb.

When I managed to steady myself and look back up, both Armsmaster and Miss Militia were watching me, tense and concerned, as though ready to swoop in the moment my knees so much as wobbled.

"I'm okay," I reassured them, standing straight. There was only the slightest quiver in my left leg.

They relaxed, but only a little.

I turned around and started down the alleyway towards Bakuda.

"Apocrypha?" Miss Militia asked as she fell into step behind me.

"I've got one last thing to finish," I told her.

Bakuda remained just as I'd left her, wrapped up in that tarp. Miss Militia obviously hadn't seen any reason to unravel it, so there she remained, limp and virtually motionless, making low, distressed crooning sounds in the back of her throat. If she'd been able to talk properly, I had no doubt she'd be cussing up a storm.

I reached for the hero I needed, just to be sure.

"Set. Install."

I shrunk five inches. My hair receded up into my head, becoming a short, almost pixie-ish cut. My costume morphed into a coarse, thick fabric, hardier and more durable than modern cotton. Black shirt, black pants, maroon vest, loose maroon chaps, lined with golden trim. Leather boots, a skirt of golden scales. A single spaulder on the left shoulder.

Aífe the Handsome. Aífe the Indomitable.

"Apocrypha?" Miss Militia said again.

I didn't answer. I dropped to my knees beside Bakuda, pressed one gloved thumb against her forehead, and drew out a series of runes in the surface of her mask with nothing by my own raw power.

Then, I began the process for a second, more permanent binding.

A geis.

"Suidigidir." _Set_.

There was more than one form of geis. The easier form was the one I had used twice, now — an agreement, an oath, a vow — and it was easier because it was voluntary, because the ones making the oath made it willingly. Enforcing a promise was less difficult when it was a promise that had been entered of your own free will.

"Thrice do I bind thee, in word, in spirit, in deed."

But there _was_ a second form.

"Thrice do I take these boons, by right of conquest, over you, over your master, over your servants."

The form used by Grainne to bind Diarmuid against his will. The form by which she had forced him to run away with her, or else face the dishonor and misfortune that came from breaking it. The form of a curse, a taboo, where you _made_ someone follow your will, regardless of whether they agreed to it or not.

And it was nearly impossible to actually use.

"Thrice do I offer these prohibitions."

Unless you had some form of authority over your target. Goddess, queen, princess, _victor_ — the more authority you had, the more powerful you could make your geis.

And I had beaten Bakuda. I'd beaten her, I'd beaten her underlings, I'd even beaten her boss, Lung. I held the ultimate authority over her — her _life_.

And just to hedge my bets, I'd brought out Aífe.

"That thou shalt keep the secret of the truth of mine self. That thou shalt keep the secret of mine family. That thou shalt not act to reveal these secrets in any knowing manner."

The runes blazed. The curse took hold. The authority I had over her, as the one who spared her life, as the one who had beaten her, forked and settled, and she had no right to argue.

"Íadaid." _Close_.

When it was done, I stood back up and looked down at the woman who had done her best to kill me, who had, with the help of Oni Lee, come even closer than Lung had.

She is no threat to me.

Now, she was no more dangerous to me than a particularly ornery rabbit.

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

 **There were some particularly difficult parts to this chapter. Trying to balance out Taylor's conscious position regarding the PRT/Protectorate with Artoria's influence making her more "reasonable" and her own subconscious desire to believe that the last authority she had any faith in - the heroes who were supposed to protect the people of the city and save the common man - had not and would not simply abandon her to the wolves... It was a difficult act to manage and I'm not sure how successful I was.**

 **Yes, Taylor is becoming very fond of using geasa to solve problems. Probably because while she doesn't want to actually _kill_ anyone, I imagine the idea of, "You brought this on yourself," appeals mightily.**

 **Again, I am not in any way fluent in Irish or Old Irish. This is me trying my best with a couple of online translation websites and a dictionary or two.**

 **So. We're almost done with this arc. Up next, two more interludes, Pendulum 0.3, and then we start Arc 5: Sunder, as it is tentatively called.**

 **As always, read, review, and enjoy.**

 **And for early access to chapters and bonus content:**

 **p a treon . com (slash) James_D_Fawkes**


	32. Interlude 4-a: Delusive Lacuna

**Collateral 4.a:**

Stakeouts, Vista found herself thinking, were _really_ boring.

It'd been almost four hours already, and nothing of particular interest had happened. There had been a few stray cats wandering around (including one that had taken quite a liking to her and nearly blown her cover), a few of the neighbors had come home, and a beaten-up old pickup truck had pulled into the driveway of the house that Miss Militia _seemed_ to be watching.

None of it inspired any movement, though. There were no hushed whispers on the comms about _moving in_ or _the target is on the move_ or _I've got eyes on target_. Miss Militia did not suddenly stand up and start walking with purpose or get new orders and drive off. There were no gang members showing up, no secret meetings or suspicious gatherings happening. Neither Oni Lee nor Hookwolf made an appearance, nor even any other cape at all, actually.

It was a bland, ordinary street in a bland, ordinary neighborhood in not-so-ordinary Brockton Bay, and in the four hours Vista had spent waiting, nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

It wasn't at all what she'd expected when she'd secretly followed behind Miss Militia. She'd thought they'd be sitting around for ten, maybe fifteen minutes, before whatever it was they were supposed to be catching or following showed up, and then they'd catch it or follow it. Over, done with, and taken care of, all before dinner.

It wasn't exactly an unrealistic expectation, really; most of the Wards' patrols lasted an hour or less, maybe an hour and a half at the long end. It was some mandated thing from the head honchos in Washington or wherever, something about keeping patrol length under a certain amount of time so that the Wards' normal lives were disrupted as little as possible — in other words, complete and utter bullshit written by politicians and youth advocacy groups who didn't know thing one about what it was actually like to _be_ a cape.

Like turning off your powers was as easy as hanging your coat up or taking your shoes off when you got home from school.

But it had already been four, boring hours, filled with nothing but watching Miss Militia watch something on the other side of the street (or, well, watching the van Miss Militia was in, but same difference). If only somebody would actually _do_ something, Vista thought. If only something _interesting_ would happen.

What had she snuck out for? Why had she spun that sad little story about wanting to be with her parents during this crisis, if not to see some of the action that would no doubt follow? What had been the point of putting a dark grey hoodie on over her costume, _just_ so that she could blend into the shadows until it was time to jump into the fray, if nothing at all was going to happen?

At this rate, she might have had better luck just going out on her on and trying to find Bakuda herself, instead of waiting around with Miss Militia for…whoever or whatever it was they were actually waiting for. At least then, she might have had a better chance of actually _doing_ something, rather than just sitting around.

Vista held a hand to her mouth and stifled a yawn.

Of course, that was what Armsmaster was supposedly doing, and pulling one over on _him_ was a lot harder, with all of the gadgets and vision modes he probably had stuffed into his helmet. Vista didn't put it past him to have installed some sort of infrared thing into his visor, which would have made escaping his notice much harder than it was to watch Miss Militia's van from behind a few rosebushes.

It was just that she was getting a little…anxious. Impatient. Sure, the Wards' patrols weren't usually very interesting, either, but it was a normal sort of uninteresting, the kind that came from doing it over and over again, day in and day out. It was _expected_ that nothing would really happen, and even though that sometimes chafed, it had rarely gotten really frustrating.

There was a kind of comfort in routine. Like a friend you saw every day at lunch or a teacher who always gave homework over the weekend, no matter what. It was easier to do something when you did it all the time. Especially if you were _moving_ , _active_.

But this? This was just sitting still and waiting. Nothing to take her mind off of how _boring_ it was. Nothing to distract her from how her legs had started to fall asleep or the ache in her hips from crouching behind a bush for four hours. Nothing to drag her focus away from how late it was getting and that she was starting to get drowsy.

She wished she knew what they — what Miss Militia — were actually waiting for. A person? Another explosion? A sign from Scion himself? Maybe if she _did_ know, it might be more interesting to wait for it. Probably not by much, but at least she'd know what to do when whatever-it-was finally showed up.

She yawned again into her palm.

" _Armsmaster to Miss Militia, over."_

Vista perked up and pressed her hands against her ears to make sure she could hear.

" _This is Miss Militia. Go ahead, Armsmaster. Over."_

" _Reporting for my hourly check-in. Have not yet found the warehouse Bakuda is purported to be using. Over."_

Vista let out a sigh and relaxed, checking her watch. Eleven o'clock. An hour before Bakuda's deadline. And it seemed no one was any closer to finding her than they had been four hours ago.

" _Nothing at all? Over."_

" _Nothing. I've checked through most of the north end and the Boat Graveyard. Swept the trainyard, too. No sign of Bakuda. Anything at Valhalla? Over."_

That _had_ to be a codename, although Vista had no idea who it was supposed to be a reference to. It certainly didn't sound like something they'd use for an enforcer or top goon in the ABB. Actually, Valhalla was a viking thing, wasn't it? That had E88 written all over it.

So, why were they _here_ , when Bakuda was still out there, threatening people's lives?

" _No activity since her father came home about an hour ago,"_ said Miss Militia. _"It's getting late, too. I'm not sure how she's going to make it on time, not if she's going on foot. Over."_

…What? _Who_ was going to make it _where_ on time?

" _It's possible one of her power sets includes a Mover ability of some kind. I have not discounted outright teleportation, either. Console, are you there? Over."_

A _cape_? They were watching a _cape's_ house?

" _Console, here,"_ came Dauntless' voice. _"I hear you, Armsmaster. Over."_

" _Have there been any other reports of bombs or bomb threats since the three this morning? Over."_

" _That's a negative, Armsmaster. Everything's been quiet over on this end. Not so much as a peep from Bakuda or the ABB since the broadcast this morning. Over."_

Armsmaster grunted.

" _Keep me updated,"_ he ordered gruffly. _"If at all possible, I'd like to handle this without having to use a fifteen-year-old girl as bait."_

" _Copy that, Armsmaster. Console, out."_

" _Miss Militia,"_ Armsmaster switched immediately, _"comm me the moment you see something. It may be unavoidable that we have to follow her to find out where Bakuda is hiding. When you_ do _see her,_ do not lose sight of her. _She's probably the only person who actually knows where to go, and I would much prefer if she wasn't facing a Tinker specializing in_ bombs _alone. Over."_

" _Understood,"_ said Miss Militia. There was a moment's pause. _"How are we handling this when we_ do _find her? …Ah, over."_

Armsmaster grunted again.

" _Unfortunately, if we can't find Bakuda before Apocrypha leads us to her, our options are fairly limited. To minimize casualties among the civilian populace, our best bet would be to attack while she's distracted by Apocrypha. The profile we compiled based upon the video today and data from the Cornell incident indicates she's likely to gloat or monologue."_

"… _using Apocrypha as bait."_

" _Yes,"_ he admitted grimly.

 _Apocrypha?_ Vista gasped, then slapped her hands over her mouth. If the microphone built into her visor had been turned on, she would've given herself away right then and there.

They were waiting for _Apocrypha_?

Their last resort was to rely on a _newbie_? A newbie that had taken down _Lung_ on her first night out, yeah, but still a _newbie_. Facing a villain in an open fight was one thing, but _willingly_ walking into what everyone _knew_ was an ambush set by a _Tinker_? Most _hardened veterans_ would think twice about doing something that reckless and suicidal.

And their Plan B was to wait for the newbie who hadn't even been a hero for a _week_ to lead them to Bakuda? Were they _crazy_?

" _Whether we like it or not, our options are simply that limited,"_ said Armsmaster. _"So, keep a close eye on things, call it in when she leaves, and follow her as discreetly as possible. Over."_

" _Roger, Armsmaster. I'll_ — _wait. I've got movement."_

For one heart-pounding second, Vista was afraid she'd been caught, but then she realized that there was no way it'd been her. It had to be the girl they were apparently waiting for, Apocrypha.

" _I see her, Armsmaster. She's climbing out a second storey window. Black costume, white mask, hair done up in a ponytail_ — _it's likely she's using one of her heroes, possibly optimized for speed."_

" _Keep on her,"_ said Armsmaster urgently.

Slowly, carefully, Vista stood and stretched out her cramped legs. She made sure to stoop so that she wasn't visible, and she didn't dare to poke her head over the bushes to try and glimpse what was going on. Instead, she tried to peer through the gaps in the branches, although she couldn't really see much. It was mostly disjointed blobs of color, all dark and cast in grey.

There was a quiet, nearly silent pneumatic hiss as the van's doors opened and a ramp extended to the ground. Vista had to use her imagination to fill in the blanks of Miss Militia's bike slowly rolling onto the pavement.

"She's leaving," said Miss Militia's voice, coming both from Vista's visor and, muffled by the motorcycle helmet, from the woman herself. "Towards the Docks, like we thought. Fast, too — you were right, Armsmaster, it seems some of her power sets _do_ include a Mover ability."

" _Don't lose track of her,"_ said Armsmaster. _"She's our only lead, right now."_

"Roger," Miss Militia said. With an almost noiseless rev of her bike, she started off. "I'm in pursuit."

As she took off, so did Vista, shortening the space between her hiding spot and a nearby roof. It wasn't quite the same, roof-hopping in a residential neighborhood. The slanted rooftops were more awkward footholds than the flat, gravel-lined rooftops common in the older parts of downtown or the gothic marble of places like the courthouse. Awkward wasn't impossible, though, and Vista had the most experience of anyone on the Wards team, and even some of the Protectorate.

They'd barely gone one street over before Miss Militia pulled to a halt, and Vista herself almost stumbled and fell off of the roof she'd been crossing as she stopped, too.

" _Damn."_

" _Problem?"_

" _I've lost sight of her,"_ Miss Militia reported. _"No, it was more like… The minute she left my field of view, she vanished."_

What? Vista checked and looked over from her higher vantage point, but even though the vision enhancements in her visor gave her a clear view of everything from Miss Militia to the stray cat digging through someone's trash can, she couldn't see anyone else, and especially not anyone matching either the description PHO gave of Apocrypha or the one Miss Militia had given just a few minutes ago.

The hell? How did someone just _disappear_ like that? Apocrypha was supposed to be a Brute or something, wasn't she? That was the main theory on PHO, some kind of Brute-Blaster combo, like Lung.

Wait. They'd mentioned _power sets_. Was Apocrypha a _Trump_?

" _Are you certain she didn't just turn?"_

" _No, she was cutting through backyards and hopping fences, and I didn't see her cross into the street. The only reason to move like that_ — _"_

" _Is if you're taking the quickest route to your destination: a straight line,"_ Armsmaster finished. He grunted. _"Not as good as we wanted, but more than we had an hour ago. What was her heading?"_

" _North by northwest, towards Old Town. I can't think of any particular landmark in that direction, though. Armsmaster?"_

There was a moment of silence; Vista thought he was probably checking a map on his heads-up display.

A Trump, though. Those were pretty rare. On the other hand, it _did_ make a little more sense. How a newbie could beat Lung by herself. Why the Protectorate and the PRT knew where she lived. Why Miss Militia had been parked outside her house all day. Trumps were one of the most sought after types of cape, next to Tinkers and Thinkers, and one that was powerful enough to put Lung down would be worth her weight in gold.

She was still a newbie, though.

"… _A couple of old fisheries, several abandoned warehouses leftover from the city's shipping days, and a factory. Nothing that jumps out. Console."_

" _Go ahead, Armsmaster,"_ said Dauntless.

" _Check the power grid for the area. I need to know which buildings are using electricity that_ shouldn't _be. Send me the addresses the minute you've got them."_

" _Copy that."_

" _You think we'll find her like that?"_ asked Miss Militia.

" _No,"_ said Armsmaster bluntly. _"If I were in Bakuda's position, I'd be using my own generator. Even if it's a longshot, however, there's a chance she hasn't been that careful. In the meantime, we sweep Old Town. Look for anything that seems out of place_ — _a new security camera, lights on where they shouldn't be, people standing watch,_ anything. _"_

" _Understood."_ Miss Militia revved her bike back up, a quiet purr that could have been mistaken for the wind. _"I'm heading out. ETA, twenty minutes."_

Miss Militia's bike took off, and so did Vista, trailing just far enough behind that she wasn't going to be seen in one of the rearview mirrors. She crossed the rooftops like hopscotch, staying low to reduce her profile and shortening the distance so it was less like jumping over them and more like one continuous stretch of road.

Her heartbeat started to pick up the further they went, and she had to focus to keep herself from grinning. Bakuda was waiting ahead, and so was a fight, a chance for Vista to stretch her legs and prove that she was ready for the big leagues. If she used her powers to save someone's life, if _she_ turned out to be the only thing that stood between Armsmaster or Miss Militia, or even the new girl, Apocrypha, that had everyone's panties in a twist, and a grisly death, then they'd _have_ to take her seriously, stop treating her like a little kid to be swaddled and dressed up for the cameras.

The buildings started to change as they went, steadily turning from suburban residences to old, brick buildings, from houses with slanted roofs to bakeries and shoe-makers with flat, gravel-lined roofs. At the same time, the quality of the buildings she traveled across started to decline — boarded up windows, missing front doors, collapsed chimneys, and things like that.

They were starting to enter Old Town.

Down on the road — which was filled with cracks and potholes — Miss Militia pulled up to another stop.

" _I'm at Old Town, south end,"_ she reported. _"No sign of Apocrypha or Bakuda. Over."_

" _I'm at the north end,"_ Armsmaster replied. _"Same. Console, do you have anything?"_

" _Still looking,"_ said Dauntless. _"Nothing so far, though. Sorry, Armsmaster."_

Armsmaster grunted.

" _It was worth a shot,"_ said Miss Militia.

" _Unfortunately, it puts as back at square one. A general location, but nothing specific enough. Console, is Velocity still_ — _"_

A flash suddenly lit up the night sky off in the distance, and as Vista turned to look towards it, an echoing rumble, deep and powerful, shook her to her bones. Off towards the other end of the Docks, closer to downtown and Empire territory, an explosion briefly expanded outwards, and a cloud of thick, black smoke rose up into the air.

A bomb. Bakuda had set off another bomb.

" _Was that…?"_

" _Console!"_ barked Armsmaster. _"Get Velocity over there, immediately, have him check on that blast site! Contact EMS, but don't let them in range until Velocity sounds the all clear! I want Assault and Battery in the air and on standby in thirty seconds!"_

" _Copy that, Armsmaster,"_ Dauntless replied. _"Rerouting Velocity, A and B are heading towards the landing pad as we speak. ETA, three minutes."_

" _Armsmaster,"_ began Miss Militia, _"you don't think…"_

He grunted.

" _No. This is likely a distraction, meant to draw our attention as far away as possible. However, I'd rather check and be right than not check and be wrong. Console, as soon as EMS is on scene, I want Velocity back here and scouting."_

Vista heard Miss Militia let out something like a relieved sigh. _"You don't think that was Apocrypha, then? That she's still alive?"_

" _No,"_ he said. _"It's too far off her projected path, for one. For another, Bakuda is arrogant, not stupid. It isn't an entirely unreasonable assumption to think that we would be tailing Apocrypha, or failing that, looking for her ourselves. Letting off another bomb is a textbook misdirection to keep us occupied chasing after her in the wrong place."_

" _That doesn't guarantee anything."_

It really didn't, Vista agreed. Real life cape fights weren't anything like they were on those silly Saturday morning cartoons; _real_ supervillains were perfectly happy to set up traps and ambushes to kill their enemies without fanfare.

" _No. But as I said earlier, Bakuda's profile suggests a flair for drama and an inflated sense of self-importance. Someone like her cannot pass up the opportunity to gloat about her cleverness and superiority."_ He paused. _"And the fact that she set up a distraction to keep us busy would suggest that she's shown up in person."_

" _Meaning that if we find Apocrypha, we'll find Bakuda, too."_

" _Exactly."_

The comms crackled and beeped.

" _Velocity, here,"_ said Velocity's voice. _"I'm at the site of the latest bomb blast. It was a building across from the Old Dutch Church."_

" _Casualties?"_ asked Armsmaster gravely.

Vista swallowed thickly, dreading the answer.

" _None. The building was empty, so no one was killed in the explosion. However, I've got a lot of panicking people here who were holding vigil for the victims of this morning's bombs. Some of them have shrapnel wounds, a few were cut up by the glass from the windows… Nothing fatal, but some of them are pretty serious. The bomb appears to have been a normal explosive, although there's no way to know for sure until the forensics team has gone through the wreckage."_

Armsmaster grunted. Vista agreed, it was a lot better than it could have been.

" _Stay on sight. Keep them calm until EMS arrives, then I want you back on the search."_

" _Copy that. Velocity, out."_

" _Miss Militia."_

" _Yes, Armsmaster?"_

" _I need you to_ — _"_

 _BOOM_

It was much less loud and much more muffled than the previous explosion, but Vista could still hear it, like the rumble of distant thunder during a rainstorm. Immediately, her head swung around in the direction of the noise, and down below her, she could see Miss Militia turn to look, too.

There was no sign, though. No telltale cloud of smoke or flash of light. Just the sound of another explosion.

" _Militia!"_

" _I know, I heard it!"_ Miss Militia replied. Her motorcycle revved almost silently. _"I'm on my way!"_

Her tires squealed, and then she was off. Stumbling, Vista scrambled to follow her, running low to keep her profile down and less noticeable. In her chest, her heartbeat started to pick up, again. This was it, she thought. This was the fight. Any minute now, they'd be coming up on Bakuda and Apocrypha and _then_ …

 _BOOM_

Another explosion echoed. It was deeper and fuller, somehow, than it had been the last two times, and it seemed to come from the same place. Even at such a distance, Vista could feel the building beneath her feet rattle.

What was going _on_? Was Bakuda _insane_? Was she _trying_ to get slapped with a Kill Order?

" _What? Another one?"_

" _They're fighting!"_ Armsmaster growled. _"Apocrypha and Bakuda! They're fighting!"_

 _That's_ what those explosions were about?

Vista's heart skipped a beat.

And they might finish before she got there.

" _How close are you?"_

" _Close!"_ replied Miss Militia.

" _ETA?"_

" _Two, three minutes, if I floor it_ — _"_

" _Then floor it! I did not install gyroscopic inertial stabilizers so that you could forget about them when you need them!"_

" _Roger!"_

On the road below, Miss Militia's bike sped up, far, far faster than Vista could surreptitiously follow along. She had to abandon the crouched half-run she'd been relying on to escape notice and break out into a sprint, squishing together larger and larger distances just to keep herself from getting left behind. Whole rooftops were smushed into the space of a few centimeters, each step stretched out to twenty feet — and still, she was barely keeping up, barely able to keep Miss Militia and her bike in sight.

Around and through Old Town, they went. Through the streets, Miss Militia made turns that even Vista, who knew next to nothing about motorcycles, thought shouldn't be possible, while above on the rooftops, she struggled to keep up.

 _BANG-BANG-BANG_ went another series of explosions, so close together that they seemed almost to be a single sound, so nearby that Vista could feel the vibrations shake through her teeth. They accompanied brief flashes of light that lit up in the distance, there and gone so quickly that she would have missed them if she'd blinked.

" _Miss Militia!"_ barked Armsmaster's voice.

" _Almost there!"_

Barely had the words left her mouth than did a loud, bone-chilling scream split the air — tortured, agonized, filled with such pain that Vista could only imagine that the one making it had to be burning alive or drowning in boiling acid. It echoed and pierced straight through her, as though someone had driven nails through her eardrums or a stake through her chest.

" _Armsmaster!"_

" _It doesn't mean you're too late! Go!"_

It took a moment for the words to register, for Vista's brain to catch up and realize that it wasn't Bakuda or one of her goons that was screaming, that it couldn't be, because it was too high pitched and didn't have the rasp she could remember from the video earlier in the morning. It wasn't a man, it wasn't Bakuda.

That meant it had to be Apocrypha.

It felt like bare seconds later when Vista saw the lights, turned to see a warehouse on the street to her right, with pale shafts of light spilling from the windows and from holes that looked to have been blasted into its sides. That had to be the one, the warehouse they were looking for, but Miss Militia didn't turn onto the street, she drove past it, and when Vista took a bare second to look, she realized why: there was no one _on_ the street, no sign of any explosions, so either they were inside or out behind it.

As Miss Militia took the next turn instead, Vista scrunched up the space between her building and the one across the street from her. One step took her onto the next rooftop. Another step, then another, and she was standing atop the warehouse next to the one with all the lights on. She took barely a second, little more than a quick glance, to see the devastating holes blasted into the side walls, then she was running along, crossing another rooftop. A long alleyway stretched out between her and the next building over.

With three running strides, she was at the edge of the roof, peering down, panting from having run for so long. Below her, there was a smooth, black ball closer to the holey warehouse, and further out — there, a tall, slim girl in purple and gold, splayed out on the ground and shaking. And there, coming up on her —

Vista gasped breathlessly.

Oni Lee.

Oni Lee advanced on the girl who had to be Apocrypha, knife raised menacingly. There was something wrong with him, a slight limp in his step, a strange flop to his right arm, but Vista didn't care much for trying to figure out what or why, because that wasn't the time for it. She reached out, preparing to widen the space between them as much as she could, no matter how difficult it would be —

But Miss Militia was already there, sliding into a crouch at the open end of the alley. She was already hefting a large, long rifle with a wide barrel, already sliding a tube with a fluffy ball at one end and big, thick needle on the other into it, already propping the butt against her shoulder and aiming down the sights.

 _Fwhoop_

The sound of the gun firing was barely audible over the pounding of her pulse in Vista's ears. Thirty, forty, fifty feet — the dart traveled with speed, crossing the distance so quickly that it was little more than a blur. It struck home in Oni Lee's chest, piercing what she took to be some kind of bulletproof vest, and lodged there.

For a long, tense moment, he didn't seem to know what had happened. Vista swung her attention back to Miss Militia, who was now carrying a slightly different rifle and aiming unerringly at Oni Lee. Then, she fired again, and there was a loud _CRACK_ , and when Vista looked back at him, Oni Lee had dropped his knife, which clattered to the ground, and the hand he'd obviously been holding it with looked mangled and broken.

Wait. Rubber bullets? Why…?

Duh, Vista felt like smacking herself a second later. Oni Lee. Grenades everywhere. Explosives and firearms did not mix, especially with Apocrypha, the new heroine, _right there_.

 _CRACK_ — and she shot him again, right in the head, only for the body to stumble, fall, and vanish into ash —

And the _real_ Oni Lee to appear in the air above the rooftop _Vista was standing on_.

As he fell and landed and stumbled, Vista slapped her hands over her mouth to stifle her gasp and ducked behind what she could only guess was an air conditioning unit or something. Her heartbeat thudded loudly in her ears, and for a few tense seconds, she waited to see if he'd noticed her, if he'd heard her gasp or her moving.

But when he didn't suddenly pop up beside her holding a grenade, she turned carefully and cautiously poked her head over the boxy thing she was hiding behind.

Oni Lee was still where he'd landed, crouched and hunched over. With his right arm apparently somehow disabled and his left hand broken, he was on his knees, propping himself up with his left elbow. He must have landed pretty hard.

As she watched, he slowly got his feet underneath himself and started to stand, but he was having obvious difficulty. He couldn't use his hands, could only support himself with the one elbow, and his legs looked as though they might give out at any moment. Even when he managed to get mostly upright, he was swaying dangerously, almost like he was drunk.

…Or was feeling the effects of that tranquilizer he'd been hit with.

Even still, it was clear to her that he wasn't going to fall over before he managed to escape. Before her eyes, he was getting his bearings, and all it would take was a handful of quick teleports, a scant few seconds, for him to get far, far out of range before he collapsed. He was going to get away.

Unless she stopped him.

For a heartbeat, Vista hesitated. After all, Oni Lee was an infamous psychopath. He was not only one of the few capes both willing and able to kill people casually, he was also one of the ones who could pretty easily get away with it. He'd never killed or seriously injured a Ward before, but she had no trouble believing he'd do it without batting an eye.

But…what if she captured him?

The idea swelled in her chest, pushing away caution and fear. After all, wasn't that why she'd come out here in the first place? To prove she was good enough, that she wasn't just the cute, little media darling that the PRT had forced her into playing, that she was a hero in her own right and not just window dressing?

Wouldn't that go against the whole point if she just let him get away?

Yes, yes, it would.

Vista shifted and narrowed her gaze on her enemy.

So, she needed to capture him. Unfortunately, that was easier said than done. Oni Lee had a power that countered hers pretty hard. No matter what she did, no matter how she twisted or altered space to keep him from getting away, he had the advantage in that he could simply teleport out of whatever she did. She couldn't beat him like that.

Fortunately, she thought as he swayed again, shaking his head, she didn't even _need_ to beat him, she just had to keep him occupied long enough for the tranquilizer to kick in and knock him out. So all she really needed to do was distract him, not pen him in.

In that case…

Vista glanced around for something to use, then felt like an idiot when she realized she was standing on a roof lined with _gravel_.

Well, it certainly beat trying to use something heavier.

She carefully and quietly reached down, grabbing a fistful in one hand. She took a single piece, and with a moment of concentration, the space between them twisted like a pretzel, curving around. She wound back her arm, took aim, then _threw_ it.

Coming from a completely different direction, that little piece of gravel hit Oni Lee in the back of the head, just above and behind his left ear.

Vista ducked back down, and the altered space snapped back to normal as Oni Lee flinched and whirled around to look for whoever had thrown that gravel at him. She had to grin as he looked out over the street and towards the building across from theirs, where there was no one in sight.

Twisting space again, she fingered another piece of gravel, wound her arm back again, and threw it. It flew through the curved space, traveling out and around, and it hit Oni Lee square on the back of the head — from the exact opposite direction of the first.

He spun around again, looking, but again, there was no one there to have thrown the gravel.

Grinning broadly, Vista used her power, and the third bit of gravel sailed up, then came back down and landed on top of his head, this time. Comically, he turned towards the sky, head swiveling wildly as he looked for a nonexistent enemy who had dropped a pebble on him.

 _Where are you even looking?_

Stifling a giggle, Vista picked up another piece and considered how she was going to hit him, this time. Wouldn't it _really_ screw with his head if it hit him right where Miss Militia had shot his clone down in the alleyway? Right between the eyes? Yeah, that sounded like a good idea. Let him try and wrap his brain around _that_ one.

Vista wound back, shifted, and as she tried to visualize the twists and turns in space, her foot shifted and slid —

 _BONG_

And slammed right into the box she was using as cover.

As Oni Lee whirled around to look at her, Vista froze, arm raised, fistful of gravel still in one hand, halfway through winding up for her throw. For an instant, they remained that way, staring, frozen in place, and the moment hung…

Then, Oni Lee appeared less than ten feet away.

Vista scrambled to back away and fell onto her behind, dropping the gravel she'd been holding, and Oni Lee started to advance menacingly, one step at a time. Each inch closer sealed off another escape route, cut away another option, hemmed her in alone with a remorseless killer, until all that stood between her and him was the metal box that she'd been hiding behind.

She tried, failed, to focus on lengthening the space between them as she dragged herself backwards along the roof. She tried, failed, to push her feet up under her, to kick herself up and stand, as her heart thundered in her chest and in her ears and drowned out everything else but her and him.

Oni Lee advanced, implacable as a mountain. He advanced, unstoppable as a speeding train. He advanced, inevitable as death. There was no way to escape him, nowhere else left to go, no more distance to put between him and her.

And then, Oni Lee, one of the most dangerous villains in the city, stumbled, fell forward, and slumped bonelessly onto the box thing she'd been hiding behind.

Dumbfounded, Vista wondered for a moment if she was dreaming.

"Holy…" she whispered. _Did that really just happen? Like some fake-out from one of Dennis's action movies?_

A moment passed. Oni Lee didn't move.

"Is he out?" she asked herself quietly.

Still, Oni Lee didn't move. If it wasn't for the rise and fall of his chest, she might have thought him dead.

Slowly, cautiously, Vista stood back up and walked over to him. He remained slumped over the box thing, apparently out cold, even when she grabbed another piece of gravel and pinged it off of his mask.

Yup. Out cold.

Rummaging about in her pockets, Vista pulled out one of the zipties she'd swiped from her father's toolbox, and with a little bit of maneuvering and far too much effort for how easily the adult heroes did it, she bound his arms behind his back by the wrists.

"How do Battery and Miss Militia make it look so _simple_?"

When she was done, she stepped back and inspected her handiwork, and after a moment, was satisfied. She'd captured Oni Lee.

Now the hard part: figuring out how to hand him off to the adults.

…Eugh. She hadn't thought this part through very well, had she? If she tried to take credit for it — and she wanted to, because hadn't that been why she'd come out in the first place, to prove she was capable of hacking it in the big leagues — then there was no way she wouldn't get punished for it. Maybe even benched for the foreseeable future.

Wouldn't that be the height of irony? She proved she was ready to be a real hero and not some mascot to be paraded around, only to be stuck manning the console until she graduated.

On the other hand, if she left and didn't say anything, then what was the point of coming out in the first place? She might as well have just stayed —

"LOOK OUT BELOW!" a familiar voice suddenly called.

Vista startled and dove for cover behind the stairwell, peeking out just enough to see a blur of red flash towards the ground and a white and grey blur land, then burst into motion atop the building across the alley from hers. Neither seemed to have noticed her.

Assault and Battery.

Which meant she only had so much longer to figure out what she was going to do. If _they_ were here, Armsmaster couldn't be all that far behind them, and then it was just a matter of minutes until the PRT arrived and started securing the scene. If she hadn't come up with something by then, the decision would be made for her.

Great.

Vista sighed.

What a wonderful way of proving that she knew what she was doing, by showing that she had no idea what she was doing. _That_ would certainly convince the PRT and the Protectorate that they shouldn't be treating her like a helpless kid, to be coddled and left on the sidelines.

She glanced back at Oni Lee, who hadn't moved at all.

It wasn't like she could just go down there and drop him off. "Oh, by the way, I happened to be in the neighborhood and caught this guy trying to sneak off." Yeah, like _that_ would go over well. No, of _course_ she hadn't snuck out to help find and fight the mad bomber who blew up a bunch of public places and had threatened to blow up more, why would they think something like that? That was just _crazy_.

…She _really_ hadn't thought this part out that well, had she?

Damn it.

Where were they all, anyway? What was with the radio silence? Shouldn't she be hearing a bunch of "Yes, sir" and "No, sir" and Assault cracking jokes? At the very least, there was no way Armsmaster wasn't keeping tabs —

When she reached up to check, it was to find that her radio had gotten turned off at some point. When, how, she didn't know.

But when she turned it back on, there was no sign of him or Miss Militia. The only ones on the line were Assault and Battery, who were making quiet small talk as they did…whatever it was they were doing.

"Where _are_ they?"

Vista went over to the lip of the building and looked down into the alleyway below, searching for the others who should have been there. Sure enough, there was Miss Militia, standing off to one side, and there was Armsmaster — when had _he_ shown up? — talking to… Wait. Where was…? Was that _Apocrypha_?

Vista's brow furrowed. What? But she looked _completely_ different, now. Blonde hair, blue dress, silver armor, nearly as short as _Vista herself_ was — where was the tall, willowy girl with long, dark hair, dressed in purple and gold? Where was the mask with the reflective lenses, the gloves, the skintight undersuit?

Was _this_ part of Apocrypha's powers? What even…

Vista stopped as a thought occurred to her.

And why were the talking with the radios off?

She leaned over the edge and aimed her visor at Armsmaster, then reached up and turned a dial to increase audio pickup, like one of those toy spy microphones kids played with. It was one of the handful of functions that Kid Win had added for her.

Having a Tinker on your team could be really cool, sometimes.

For a moment, there wasn't any sound at all, and Vista worried that it had gotten broken, somehow, during the scuffle with Oni Lee or something. Then, after a couple of seconds, Armsmaster's voice was talking in her ear, as crisp and clear as if she was standing right next to him.

"We… We know how…Shadow Stalker died."

Vista's heart stopped.

…What?

"Oh?"

And Apocrypha's voice, cool and unmoved, filled her with dread.

Why… Why would they be telling this to an _independent_ when even the Wards, Shadow Stalker's _teammates_ , hadn't gotten the full story, yet?

"We know that you were…involved in her death."

"That I killed her, you mean?"

Vista gasped and slapped her hands over her mouth, flinging herself back into her hiding spot. For a few heart-pounding seconds, as her pulse thundered in her ears, she was sure that she had been discovered, that someone would appear over the lip of the roof and reveal her. She was sure she'd been caught.

But no one came.

Slowly, as her heartbeat started to calm, Vista crept back out and tried to focus in on the conversation, again. She'd missed a parts of it, though, because there had to have been something said that made this next part make sense.

"— do not intend to pursue any charges, criminal or otherwise."

"Really?" the skepticism in the girl's voice was almost physical. "And why should I trust you, now? Now, after everything she did under your nose? Now, after you just admitted that you shattered the unwritten rules and unmasked me?"

What?

Vista tried to wrap her head around what she was hearing, but couldn't. The unwritten rules, unmasking Apocrypha? When, how, why? What did it have to do with anything?

Obviously, there was something going on that she didn't understand, some background detail that she'd missed or something, because there had to be _something_ that explained why the Protectorate were not only going to let Shadow Stalker's murderer get off the hook, but also letting her act as though _she was the victim_.

Right?

There had to be _something_ , didn't there? Armsmaster, Miss Militia, Director Piggot — there was no way they would just let the girl who murdered a Ward get away with it, just because she was powerful, right? There had to be some reason that made it all make sense, didn't there? Something that _explained_ why they weren't slapping the cuffs on her and dragging her into a cell, why they weren't going to send her to jail for _killing_ a _Ward_.

…Right?

Then, down below, Armsmaster said something that did nothing to reassure her.

"Are you familiar with the protocols of the Endbringer Truce?"

"No," said Apocrypha.

Vista could only listen as he explained it for her benefit, talking about the whys and the hows, while something like dread settled in her stomach. An idea of where he was going, what he was about to do, started to bounce around inside her head, but no, there was no way, he wouldn't.

Would he?

But why? Why were they going so far for this girl? Why were they treating her with such care and respect? Why were they going through so much effort to stay on her good side? Why weren't they _arresting_ her? _She killed Shadow Stalker! And she admitted it right in front of them!_

In the alleyway below, Armsmaster lifted off his helmet and revealed his face.

"Colin Wallis."

"Taylor Hebert," said Apocrypha. "But then, you already knew that."

"I did," Armsmaster admitted.

"There's just one thing I want to know, Armsmaster."

"If I can answer it, I will."

"Did you know? You, the PRT, the Protectorate, _whoever_ was in charge of watching out for her, _you_ , who worked with her… Did you know what Sophia was doing — to me, to all of the other people she tormented?"

"No," he said firmly. "No, we did not. The issue is currently under investigation, to determine who or what failed and enabled her to act in such a manner. Her handler will be brought up for review, and the staff at Winslow will be questioned to determine their level of complicity."

"Just…one more thing, then." I looked at where I thought his eyes would be. "If you _had_ known, if you _had_ found out before she died…what would you have done?"

"She was in violation of the terms of her probation," he answered gruffly. "Per the original deal worked out by the courts…she would have been remanded into PRT custody, until such time as a hearing could be arranged. If the courts decided that she had, indeed, violated her probation, she would have been sent to a juvenile detention facility to serve out the rest of her term."

"Thank you."

But Vista couldn't sit and listen to it anymore. She turned away and left immediately back in the other direction, Oni Lee forgotten on the rooftop. Space yawned, then contracted, yawned, then contracted as she used her powers to put as much distance between her and those _fakes_ who called themselves heroes as she possibly could.

There was no way. _No way_.

She didn't even think about where she was going or how far, she just went as fast as her legs could carry her as far as her powers would let her, her head swirling with anger and betrayal.

Bullying? _Bullying_? _That_ was why Apocrypha had killed Shadow Stalker, because she'd been _bullying_ her?

Granted, Vista herself had been on the receiving end of some of that vitriol and spite, and she'd had a fantasy or two about beating Sophia's face in, but that didn't mean she'd ever _do it_. A little mean-spirited teasing, a trip or two in the HQ hallways, some insults and derogatory remarks about her height and age — those weren't any fun, but that wasn't a reason to _kill_ her.

Hadn't Apocrypha — hadn't _Taylor_ ever thought about going to a teacher? Or fighting back? Or even _transferring_ to a different school, if it was that bad?

And the heroes — Armsmaster, Miss Militia, hell, maybe even Piggot and the rest of the Protectorate were in on it, too — just letting her off the _hook_ , like she'd been caught stealing from the cookie jar and hadn't just confessed to _murder_. That easily, they'd just… Sure, she'd been a massive and total bitch, none of the other Wards had really liked her, and Vista had hated her guts, but Shadow Stalker — Sophia — had been a _Ward_. Didn't that count for _anything_?

Vista stopped only when her legs gave out and she couldn't go any further, on a random rooftop in the middle of what she vaguely recognized as Downtown. She landed on her knees, scraping them against the roof, probably skinned them pretty badly. She didn't feel it, then. She probably wouldn't have cared if she had.

"Damn it!"

Hot tears spilled down over her cheeks and she punched the roof as hard as she could. Her fist throbbed from the impact, but all it did was make her angrier.

"Is that all we're worth, to you?!" she demanded of the heroes who weren't there. "It's okay if we die, as long as you get another strong hero on your side out of it?!"

Kid Win, Clockblocker, Browbeat, _Gallant_ … Would they all be sacrificed, too, if it meant they could sweet talk someone like Apocrypha into joining up? Did their lives mean that little, that they could be tossed aside when it was convenient? Were they willing to overlook _anything_ , if it meant having a powerful cape as part of the Protectorate?

"Taylor Hebert." That was the name of the girl who had killed Shadow Stalker — who had killed Sophia.

"Taylor Hebert." She said it again, to make sure she had it right.

Taylor Hebert. Apocrypha. She seared those names into her brain and clung to them so that she wouldn't forget. Taylor Hebert. A tall girl with long, curly dark hair. Taylor Hebert. The girl who had killed Sophia Hess.

A decision formed, cold and hard, in Vista's head, and as she wiped away the tears, she stood up and looked back in the general direction of where they'd all been.

Fine. They wanted to suck up to a murderer? Let them suck up to a murderer. They were willing to bend over backwards for the girl who beat Lung? Let them bend over. They wanted to treat her with kid gloves? Let them.

"Taylor Hebert." She said it one last time so that she would never forget it.

If they didn't want to arrest the girl who had killed a Ward, then Vista would do it herself.

She just had to figure out how to do that, first, capture a Trump that could take down Lung.

But she had a pretty good idea about where to start.

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

 **The reason this is a week late is because my Patrons started telling me, just as I was getting ready to release this, that the end threw them off the chapter. So, I set the release back a week, revised this version, and finished 4.b - which will be released shortly - and here we are now.**

 **Next Saturday will be Pendulum 0.3. The week after that, we begin arc 5: Sunder.**

 **As always, read, review, and enjoy.**

 **And for early access to chapters and bonus content:**

 **p a treon . com (slash) James_D_Fawkes**


	33. Interlude 4-b: Amicus Curiae

**Collateral 4.b: Amicus Curiae**

Alan Barnes would do anything for his family. _Anything_ , if it meant their safety and happiness. For his beloved wife, his two baby girls, _anything and everything_.

He thought he'd known what that meant, once, like many fathers probably did. He thought he'd had some idea of what _anything_ was, how far _everything_ went. He'd assumed, with a confidence only an ignorant fool could feel, that he knew, that he _understood_ the promise implied in those words.

Any father should, shouldn't he? Know that there might be trials and hardships entailed in raising a helpless infant into a complete human being? Know that he might one day have to get his little girl fitted for braces, ferry her to her friend's house for sleepovers, teach her how to drive, buy her a tub of ice cream after a bad breakup (although, naturally, no boy would ever be good enough _anyway_ ) — even, sometimes, grin, bear it, and make nice with people he couldn't stand, just because their kids happened to miraculously get along.

The _worst_ thing any father expected might be having to pick his daughter up from the police station, bail her out after one of her friends dragged her to a party where some idiot's stupid, irresponsible parents had left the liquor cabinet unlocked. Alan Barnes was not naive enough to forget what it had been like to be a teenager, what sorts of things teenagers got up to when they thought their parents would never know.

 _That_ was always what Alan had assumed would be the worst thing to ever happen to his girls, the farthest that _anything_ would stretch. Like all fathers, he dreaded still more things — that Anne or Emma would get addicted to drugs, that some horny teenage boy just wouldn't take _no_ for an answer, that there'd be a terrible car crash the first time they went out by themselves and _everything_ would suddenly mean _burying_ one or even _both_ of his daughters…

In the aftermath of Annette Hebert's death, that last one in particular had featured more in his nightmares than he wanted it to.

But those were the secret fears that plagued _all_ fathers, and at least when he was awake, he could allay them and comfort himself by thinking, no, those sorts of things weren't common and he had no reason to expect them to happen, so there was no reason to get himself worked up over them. A handful of kids getting themselves killed because they were texting and driving at the same time was not a valid reason to take away Emma's phone — especially since Emma wasn't yet even sixteen, and so she couldn't legally drive _anyway_.

Then, two years ago, Alan was faced with what _everything_ meant, how far _anything_ went, and had been forced to realize that even _anything and everything_ wasn't always enough.

What good was his money, in the face of that violence, that sheer malice? It certainly wouldn't have bought them any mercy from those thugs. They would have taken whatever they wanted, and then done whatever they wanted to him and to Emma, and offering more money wouldn't have changed anything.

What good was his skill as a lawyer, in the face of those who flouted the law? In those moments, in that situation, how would it have protected him or his baby girl? As though they would have backed off simply because he threatened to sue — a lark if ever there was one. They would have offered it the only thing such an attempt would have deserved: open, mocking laughter. It would not have stopped them.

(Too, he was only a divorce attorney; even if threats like that worked, he was not a criminal prosecutor and had no power to follow through with them.)

What good was his love and his devotion, if neither one was enough to protect his children from some punk with a gun? It certainly wouldn't have saved Emma the disfigurement that she had been threatened with, that day.

In those moments, Alan had never felt more powerless.

A hand on his shoulder brought Alan out of his thoughts. When he turned and looked over, it was to find his wife, Zoe, leaned over the back of his chair. She smiled a little.

"Hey, you."

Alan offered her a smile of his own, but his heart wasn't quite in it. "Hey, you."

Her other hand came down, and gently, lovingly, comfortingly, she began to slowly rub his shoulders.

"Everything okay?" she asked quietly, breath tickling his ear. "You looked like there was something bothering you."

"No," was his immediate response. But after a moment, as though the hands massaging him were drawing out the truth, he reluctantly admitted, "Yes."

The hands stopped, and Zoe came around his chair to rest her weight on the top of one sturdy arm. One hand remained on his opposite shoulder, one slender arm wrapped around him to offer support and love, and the other trailed down, ghosting feather-light across his skin, and entwined her fingers with his.

"So?"

"Just…thinking," he told her. "Worrying. About Emma."

The pad of one thumb, tracing soothing circles over his shoulder, stopped for a moment, then started again, a little firmer than before.

"How she's taking it, you mean."

"Yes," said Alan.

The news had broken about Shadow Stalker's death. Alan imagined, if he knew anything about the criminal justice system, that the PRT and the Protectorate had probably wanted to keep it under wraps, maybe even sweep it under the rug and quietly handle the issue themselves. The internet, however, from what he'd been able to gather, had had other ideas.

"FOUL PLAY IN BROCKTON BAY?" had been the opening story of Wednesday's evening news. "LOCAL WARD FOUND DEAD IN QUIET NEIGHBORHOOD" had been the headlines of Thursday's newspaper, plastered over the front page. In the following days, a furor of speculation and crackpot theories had been all over the place, all of them trying to work out what had happened and how.

Even before that, however, there had been rumors making the rounds at the office. Quiet whispers tossed about at the coffee maker and the vending machine, gossip spread during the lunch hour. Alan hadn't believed any of it, at first, because there was always talk like that, about the latest capes and their daring dos, about which cape was secretly in a relationship with which. There was no reason the believe this one any more than there was to believe that Dauntless and Miss Militia were secretly having an illicit affair.

Until Emma had come home, that was, red-eyed and hollow-faced, looking as though someone had pulled the world out from under her feet.

 _Anything and everything_. Except, what did that mean, when he had no idea what he was supposed to do?

"I _told_ you that girl was no good," said Zoe.

Alan sighed. "Zoe, please, not now."

"I did!" she said defensively, pulling away from him. "I told you, I told you, she was going to get herself hurt or do something stupid and pull Emma along with her. We never should have let her into this house —"

"Well, what was I supposed to do?" Alan snapped impatiently. "Emma wouldn't even come out of her _room_ until Sophia pulled her out of her funk! It's only because of that girl that Emma started to smile again —"

"At the cost of letting our daughter hang out with a violent _delinquent_!" contested Zoe. "We should have just gotten her therapy, instead, because that's _certainly_ a better idea than allowing her to traipse around with that _thug_!"

"And I told you then, I'm not going to _force_ her to go _anywhere_! If she doesn't want to go to therapy, I'm not about to drag her there, kicking and screaming!"

It was an argument they'd had several times before.

Alan was well aware that Sophia Hess — Shadow Stalker — was not the stablest or the most well-adjusted of individuals. He was well aware that she was somewhat violent and not altogether very nice. He'd have to have been a fool not to notice. Before the alleyway, she was exactly the sort of girl he wouldn't have let within five _miles_ of his little girl, let alone in the same room or the same _building_.

But…in that alleyway, she'd saved his little girl. Whatever else her faults might have been, she'd been there and she'd averted the terrible fate that had awaited them. It was because of her that Emma was safe and unharmed, but for the hair that had been lost, which was easily regrown. It was because of her that his little girl hadn't been horribly disfigured, hadn't had her nose or her ears cut off or one of her eyes gouged out.

And then, she brought Emma back. His little girl, who had spent a week holed up in her room, who had refused to talk to anyone and didn't even come out to eat with her family, and Sophia Hess had managed to drag her back, to give her life, again.

Alan had been willing to overlook a lot for that. For both of those things, really. He'd been willing to vouch for her a year later, when she'd been put before a judge to decide whether she would be sent to juvenile detention or remanded to the PRT's Wards program. He'd been willing to let them have their friendship, if it meant his darling little girl could start to smile, again.

Maybe… Maybe therapy might have been a good idea. No, Alan wasn't a fool, therapy _would_ have been a good idea.

But… Emma had been so _fragile_ , after the alleyway incident. Like glass. It had damaged her, beyond repair, he'd feared, and he'd been so afraid of doing something wrong, of pushing her too far or too hard and making things _worse_ …

So, he'd made the decision to let _her_ choose. If Emma wanted to talk to someone about what had happened, wanted to let someone _help_ her, then he'd set up an appointment the moment she said the word. Until then… Until then, he'd let her try and come to terms with it on her own. Even if that made him feel helpless and powerless.

Naturally, Zoe hadn't been pleased with the idea, but she'd grudgingly agreed to it, at the time. Every now and again, however, she brought the subject up again, and they'd rehash the same argument, which always ended the same way.

"She's not a child anymore, Zoe!" Alan said.

"No," his wife agreed, "but she's not an _adult_ , either!"

For a moment, neither of them said anything else, they just stared at each other, refusing to back down. As any married man must know, the greatest of his allies would always be his wife, and therefore so too was the bitterest of his enemies.

"Alan," Zoe began, softer and gentler, "Alan, there's no Sophia Hess to pull her out of it, this time."

"Taylor," Alan started, but couldn't finish.

"When was the last time you remember seeing Taylor and Emma so much as talking to each other?"

It went deeper than that, Alan knew. How deep, he wasn't really sure. But it was obvious something had happened, something that had broken the two of them apart. Two years ago, Taylor had vanished from Emma's life — suddenly, without warning. He suspected Emma's new friendship with Sophia had something to do with it, even that they might have become bitter enemies afterwards, but as he hadn't seen Taylor and hadn't talked to Danny, Alan didn't really know anything beyond that.

"That… That other girl," he tried instead. "The third one, what's-her-name, Milly, Missy —"

"And when have you heard Emma even _talk_ about Madison, Alan?" Zoe countered. "About what she likes, about the fun they have together… When's her _birthday_ , Alan? You couldn't even remember her _name_."

It was true, it really was, and he couldn't deny it. It was always about Sophia — always. Even when their other friend, Madison, was brought up, it was always in the context of Sophia — always, "I'm going to the mall with Sophia _and_ Madison," or "I'm going to hang out with Sophia _and_ Madison." Never just with Madison, always with Sophia _and_ Madison.

Did Emma have any other friends? If she did, he couldn't recall her ever talking about them.

"We _need_ to do something, Alan," Zoe told him. "We can't just let her sit in her room for a month, wasting away. And the school will be calling within a week, asking where she is. She needs to learn to deal with…with _this_ in a healthier way than just locking herself in her room."

"Zoe…"

"I _know_ you don't want to force her," she cut him off. "I understand. I do. But this is about _helping_ her, and leaving her alone is _not_ helping her."

For a moment, all Alan could do was look her in the eyes, the intense, beautiful blue eyes he had fallen in love with as a young man. Then, he sighed, looked away, and gave in.

"Okay," he said. "Okay. You're right. I'll call and set up an appointment for as early as I can."

Zoe smiled slightly and reached down to take his hand, gave it a squeeze. "Thank you."

"But first," he added, "we have to —"

 _Ding-dong!_ went the doorbell, interrupting him.

Alan frowned. "Are we expecting anyone?"

Zoe shook her head. "No, we're not."

"A package of some kind?"

"Not that I'm aware of. Besides, it's Sunday."

"Right, right."

"Maybe it's the neighbors?"

 _Ding-dong!_ the doorbell chimed again, followed by a series of knocks.

"Coming!" Alan shouted towards the door.

He shared a look with his wife, and then the both of them left the office and made their way through the house. If it was, indeed, one of their neighbors, it likely wasn't anything particularly pressing, and they could be sent away after some idle talk and a platitude or two.

Unless it was Missus Hendrickson. _She_ could talk up a storm and spend a whole hour discussing the condition of next door's flowers and how it meant Mister Carlyle was taking a little sugar on the side.

What Alan was _not_ prepared to see when he opened the front door was a pair of men in suits, each with a badge hanging from his belt.

"Mister Barnes?" asked one, grim-faced.

"Can… Can I help you, officer?" Alan found himself asking. His mouth was suddenly dry, because there was a feeling of foreboding coiling deep in his belly.

"I'm Detective Doyle," said the first officer, then pointed to his partner, "this is Detective Richards. Can we come in?"

Alarm bells started going off immediately in Alan's head. He wasn't a criminal defense attorney, but even a first year law student knew the answer to _that_ one.

"Actually —"

"Mister Barnes," the other one, Detective Richards, interrupted, "I don't think you want to do this in front of the neighbors."

For a moment, Alan hesitated, and then, across the street, he could see Missus Hendrickson peering over from her porch, looking down her long nose in his direction.

Alan swallowed thickly, and, feeling as though someone else were moving his body, he stepped back and to the side to let them in. "Thank you," Detective Doyle said as he and his partner walked through the door.

When the front door was closed behind them and Missus Hendrickson could no longer be seen, Alan turned to the two detectives.

"What's this about?" he asked faintly.

Detective Doyle reached into his suit and pulled out a sheaf of folded papers from the inside pocket. "We have a warrant," he said as he unfolded them and handed them over to Alan, "for the arrest of one Emma Barnes."

Zoe, who had been standing back, gasped loudly.

"On what grounds?" Alan demanded, voice rising.

Detective Doyle looked him straight in the eyes. "The attempted murder of Taylor Hebert."

"What?" Alan choked out.

"Oh my god," said Zoe. "Oh my god. No, no, it can't be true. They've been best friends since they were kids!"

"Missus Barnes —"

"No," Zoe said, starting to sound hysterical, "no, you can't! It's not true! It can't be true! Emma would _never_ …! To _Taylor_? Why would she —"

"Missus Barnes!" barked Detective Richards. "There's two ways we can do this. The first way, you let us to our jobs and you can visit your daughter later and prepare her defense or whatever you need to do to get through this. The second way, you try to stop us and we have to detain _you_ , too, for interfering in a police investigation."

Zoe stepped back, face white as a sheet. Alan could only imagine that his own complexion wasn't much better.

He'd known something was wrong with their friendship. He'd known that they'd had some kind of falling out. But Emma? His _little girl_? _Attempted murder_?

"We'll cooperate," someone said into the sudden silence. It took Alan a second to realize it was him.

"Good," said Richards. "Now, where is Miss Barnes?"

"She's in her room," said Alan. "She hasn't left ever since she heard about her friend dying."

"Alan!" said Zoe. He couldn't bare to look at her and see the betrayal on her face.

The two detectives shared a dubious look.

"We'll need you to take us to her room, then," said Detective Doyle.

Of course, Alan realized a moment later. They were Emma's parents, so if they went alone, one of them could sneak her out the window or say she'd left. That was why they weren't letting him or Zoe do it by themselves.

"This way."

This had to be some kind of horrible dream, a nightmare. This couldn't be _real_. Could it?

"Alan!" Zoe cried again, but he couldn't listen. If he did, that would mean it was _really_ happening.

Feeling as though he were watching from outside his own body, Alan led the two detectives up to Emma's room.

"This is it," he told them when they reached her door. Detective Doyle reached for the knob and turned it, to no avail. "She's locked herself in," he added belatedly.

Detective Doyle shared another look with Detective Richards.

"Do you have the key?"

"We lost it," Alan found himself admitting. "We… We figured Emma must have…have hidden it or thrown it away, after the…after the incident in the alleyway."

"Incident in the alleyway?" asked Doyle.

"Two years ago," Alan clarified. "Emma and I were attacked by a group of ABB thugs. We got out okay, because…because Shadow Stalker saved us, but…"

This time, the two detectives shared a frown.

"She refused to come out for a week."

"And that was the only one? You don't have any spares."

"No."

Detective Doyle frowned deeper, then turned back to the door and rapped his knuckles on it sharply.

"Miss Barnes! Miss Emma Barnes! We need to speak with you!"

There was no response. There hadn't been one for that week she'd spent in there last time, either.

"Miss Barnes! This is Detective Kevin Doyle with the Brockton Bay Police Department!"

He knocked again, firm and forceful. There was still no response.

"Miss Barnes!"

One more time, he tried. Nothing.

Detective Doyle turned to Alan and Zoe. "Mister and Missus Barnes, please, stand back."

Alan hesitated a moment, then took a step back. Zoe fretted silently next to him, wringing her hands.

"What are you going to —"

Detective Doyle braced himself, then threw his shoulder against the door. _THUMP_ — but it didn't budge.

"Wait," Zoe said, "stop, you can't —"

"Stay back, Missus Barnes," said Detective Richards, holding up a hand to ward her off.

Detective Doyle braced himself again, then threw his shoulder against the door a second time. There was another _THUMP_ , but it still didn't budge.

"You okay, there, Doyle?"

"It's like it's made of friggin' marble, gimme a sec," said Doyle, rubbing his shoulder.

After a moment, he squared up and tried a third time — _CRACK_. The door splintered around the knob and banged open, bouncing off the wall, and the minute it had, a sudden stench wafted out of Emma's room.

"Christ, that's ripe!"

It was the smell of sweat and urine and body odor, and even Alan had to recoil from it as it hit his nostrils.

"Fuck," said Richards. He pinched his nose shut. "The hell is up with that?"

"Emma?" Alan asked. He made to enter her room, which was dark and had the curtains drawn. "Emma, sweetie, are you okay?"

Doyle's arm stopped him.

"What?" he demanded. "Why are you stopping me?"

Doyle didn't answer; he reached into Emma's room with his other hand, felt along the wall blindly, then flipped the lightswitch — and revealed the mess that took up her room, with all of the posters torn down, books and clothes strewn about the floor, papers and ink all over the desk, and there, lying on the bed, was Emma herself, curled up into a ball and hugging her knees as she faced the far wall.

"Emma?" Doyle's arm fell and Alan rushed into the room, uncaring of what he stepped on. "Emma? Sweetie?"

The stench only got worse as he got closer, and when he reached her and turned her over, she fell bonelessly onto her back. Glassy, unseeing eyes stared up at him from behind smudged, smeared makeup, surrounded by a halo a greasy, oily hair, and he thought, for one terrible, awful moment, that she was dead. For that single second, his heart stopped and the world fell away beneath him.

But after a few breathless seconds, he realized that her mouth was moving and she was breathing. He shook her.

"Emma? Emma?"

She didn't respond.

"Emma, honey, you're scaring me."

"'S not true…"

"Emma?"

Alan leaned down and pressed his ear closer to her mouth.

"'S not true," she muttered again. "Can't be true. 'S not true. Can't be true."

"Emma?" he shook her again, but she only flopped limply.

"Mister Barnes, if I may?" Detective Doyle said.

Alan let himself be pulled back by Richards as Doyle crouched down over his daughter and checked her over — felt for her pulse, held his phone in front of her mouth to see if it fogged, waved a hand in front of her eyes, then pulled out a flashlight and shined it first in one eye, then the other. When he was done, he hung his head, shook it, and sighed.

"Christ, what a fucking mess," Alan heard him mutter.

"Doyle?"

"Richards," said Detective Doyle. "Call an ambulance. And while you're at it, see if you can't get the number for the closest psychiatric hospital. Get one of their shrinks over to take a look at her."

"Roger."

In the background, Zoe let out a sob, and Alan felt his knees weaken as he stumbled back into Emma's desk chair. It gave a dangerous, threatening creak, but he couldn't bring himself to care whether it would collapse beneath him or not.

When? He wondered. When had it all gone wrong? Just a week ago, things had been… Not perfect, but good. They'd all been happy, healthy, smiling. Emma had been normal, going out with her friends to spend time at the mall or see the latest movie out in theaters.

But now, it was all falling apart again, and he could do nothing but watch. There was another knife at his throat, pressed tightly to his jugular, and it was shaped like helplessness and despair.

Alan Barnes would do anything for his family, his wife and his two baby girls. _Anything and everything_. He _thought_ he'd known what that meant. But now… Now, he wasn't sure that he ever had.

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

 **Poor Alan Barnes. Trying to be a good father in a world where "good" famously goes to die.**

 **In some ways, Alan was nearly as hard to write as Vista was. He presented his own challenges, in no small part because I'm not a middle-aged father of two teenage girls. So any flaws, I will lay at the feet of that central issue.**

 **As for Emma... Honestly, I'm a sucker for a good redemption story. Unfortunately, this is Emma's "Exit, stage left," and though she might show up later on, this is going to take her off screen for quite a while.**

 **Pendulum's next week, like I said, then we move on to Arc 5: Sunder. I wanted to get there sooner, but the thing with last weekend and the sudden need to revise 4.a led to this situation.**

 **As always, read, review, and enjoy.**

 **And for early access to chapters and bonus content:**

 **p a treon . com (slash) James_D_Fawkes**


	34. Pendulum 0-3

**Pendulum 0.3**

 **+1380:35:49**

There were few things more terrifying — or more motivating — than a gun scare at school.

Someone had brought a gun into Winslow, today. Probably some punk from one of the gangs, posturing for his pals or bragging about how he was important enough to get a piece from one of the higher ups. _Maybe_ someone like me, only lower on the totem pole and treated even worse (and the idea that that was even _possible_ frankly boggled my mind), who had grabbed his dad's pistol so he could feel protected or something.

Not that it made it okay, but in the second case, I could relate better than I would have liked to. It was a special kind of hell to feel like half the people around you found happiness in your misery and the other half would just as soon walk past your cooling corpse without a second glance. When even the principal and the teachers didn't seem to care about your suffering, I could understand bringing a weapon to school so you could feel at least _some_ kind of security.

Winslow tended to overlook that sort of thing, though. Hell, I knew half a dozen gang kids — if not by name — who regularly carried knives into class, and it was a bit of an open secret that half of the gang kids had _some_ kind of weapon concealed somewhere on their bodies, even if it was just a pocket knife. As long as it wasn't showing and nobody was showing it off, the teachers tended to pretend it didn't happen. I guessed it was easier that way, since Winslow was too much of a hellhole for them to actually enforce their "no weapons" policy.

In either case, as with all rumors and wild stories, by the time _I_ finally heard it, it had been blown _way_ out of proportion. To hear some of my classmates tell it, some buff, burly, tatted-up skinhead had walked into class with an AK-47 slung from one shoulder and a rocket launcher held over the other, then shot up his entire math class (which I knew wasn't true, because Emma and Sophia were _fine_ , more's the pity).

In some ways, I was glad it had happened, because it got me out of my daily torture session with my personal trio of tormentors. In other ways, it was terrifying that the kid who'd done it could just as easily have shown up in _my_ classroom and pointed his gun at _me_.

"Just what I need," I mumbled to myself. "Some punk who thinks he can get into Emma's pants by shooting me in the face."

In a situation like that, the only choices I would have would be to use my powers and out myself in front of _everybody_ or let him _shoot me_. It sounded like an easy decision, but when Emma and her cronies could find a way to use a _broken zipper_ on my _backpack_ to belittle me, the idea of putting the knowledge of my powers — and the fact that I even _had_ them — in her hands made it anything _but_.

Of course, once I started on that train of thought, I eventually realized _exactly_ how vulnerable I was in my normal, everyday life. As a hero, I could do incredible things, and while I had no concrete measure of how strong my base form's barrier was, well, whoever heard of a forcefield that couldn't stop at least _one_ bullet?

As Taylor Hebert, though? It would only _take_ one. Just one stray bullet from a gunfight that broke out nearby — a distressingly common occurrence in Brockton Bay — or one ganger from school who thought I'd looked at him wrong or one down on his luck mugger who didn't like the fact that I didn't _have_ any money to hand over. If it happened fast enough, I wouldn't even have the _chance_ to transform.

So, I'd decided on my way home, I needed a way to avoid that, something to protect me in my civilian life on the off chance anything like that ever happened. Something unnoticeable that I could carry with me, that wouldn't draw immediate attention, that I could wear without anyone batting so much as an eye.

Fortunately, myths and fairy tales were rife with trinkets and charms that provided things like good luck or protection from magic spells to the person wearing them, and one of Medea's many talents was _creating_ that sort of thing.

(I had a vague thought that maybe I relied on her too much, because I'd been using her to do most of the preparations I was making for my debut as a hero, but she was versatile, talented, resourceful, and easy to relate to, for someone like me, so that was only natural. Besides, it wasn't like she was always a hair's breadth away from convincing me to destroy the world or anything like that.)

Eventually, I'd decided on a pendant or some sort of necklace, because it would be something easy enough to hide and something that would very easily go unseen — and that was _exactly_ what I needed. A ring, that would he hard to hide, not without wearing gloves everywhere and that would get noticed and prompt questions that were difficult to answer. A pendant, though, _that_ could be hidden under my baggy clothes and hoodie, where no one would see it — and most importantly, where Emma and her flunkies couldn't _steal_ it or "accidentally" knock it off my finger.

Medea could _definitely_ do that. She could do the transmutation of materials, too, although there were other heroes who specialized in it more than she did, so even if the rest of it was something I handled with her, the initial creation was something I could do with another caster.

That was where I ran into the first snag, though: materials. There were a lot of things magic could apparently do, but conjuring materials from thin air, especially high grade ones like gold, seemed to be a limit. I couldn't just say an incantation and make a golden necklace pop into existence.

Which meant I had to _make_ one. Either that, or buy one, and while that was easier in some ways, it was also… Yeah, no, I just didn't have the money, and I wasn't about to _steal_ one. I was going to be a _hero_ , I wasn't about to start that career by _taking_ from an innocent bystander.

I'd thought about using some of _Mom's_ old jewelry, but not only was there the risk that Dad would notice it missing, there was also the chance I might screw something up and ruin one of the only things left we had to remember her by.

And we had few enough of those as it was. Dad might have thought I hadn't noticed, but I knew he'd had to pawn some of it off during a few of our rougher patches.

So, yes, I had to _make_ a necklace from scratch. And for that, I needed… Well, something to transmute. Raw materials. If I was ever pressed for time or didn't have any other options…I supposed I could use something from around the house, like paperclips or spare change, but I wanted some leeway so I could start over if I had to or make one for Dad, too.

Fortunately, I had the perfect place to find those materials. It wasn't as neat or as easy as just going to a junkyard and carrying out some scrap metal, but if I scrounged around, I was sure I could find piping or rebar or something that would serve me just as well as part of a fender or the hood of a car.

That…was where I ran into _another_ problem.

Dad.

If I went out during the day and tried to bring that sort of thing home… Well, first of all, I imagined that would garner me a bunch of strange looks from people, and maybe even the wrong kind of attention — after all, there were rumors on PHO that both the Protectorate and the gangs were on the lookout for Tinkers buying and ferrying raw materials like that to work with, and that would be a really stupid way to get outed that would also happen to _put my Dad at risk_. Second of all, if Dad caught me trying to bring all of that into the house, I would have some very awkward questions to answer.

I didn't think I was ready to tell him about my powers, yet. I didn't know if I ever would be.

"Hey, Dad, I have superpowers. Ha. Like _that_ will go over well."

That led to problem number three: if I was going to go out to get materials, it would have to be at night, and I would have to do it without waking Dad up at all.

Fortunately, I was pretty sure I also had the solution to that problem: my powers.

I'd first started experimenting with my casters yesterday afternoon, and I'd decided to begin small, with a pencil, so I could get a solid grasp on how making magic devices worked. Today, however, had lit a something of a fire under my ass, so I'd moved on to messing around with various other things around the house (including our toaster, which…yeah, that whole SNAFU was better left unsaid), and I could admit I'd gotten a bit…reckless, in some cases.

By the time Dad came home, though, I felt confident enough to try something more ambitious, so around midnight, when I was sure Dad had gone to bed and fallen asleep, I got ready to make my first "supply run."

I felt a little silly, standing in my pajamas in my room, about head out. What kind of hero went out to do _anything_ in her pajamas?

But my powers came with a built-in costume, so…

"Okay," I told myself. "I need a hero who can sneak around without being noticed, someone who will let me get there and back without anyone seeing me."

I reached out with my powers — and then immediately recoiled, flinching, as my options welled up inside my head.

Because my first _nineteen_ results were _assassins_. And not the political kind, the kind that killed only one famous person, either, but the _professional_ kind, the kind that made _killing other people_ their entire _life's work_ and honed their mind and body _specifically_ for that goal.

Just… Okay. How did those even _count_ as _heroes_?

I mean, fuck, seriously? Siegfried and Gawain and them, they killed people on the battlefield, but fuck, these guys were outright _murderers_. They didn't face their enemies in direct combat, they came up to your bed while you were sleeping and _slit your goddamn throat_.

Bile rose up in the back of my throat, and I had to close my eyes to fight down the nausea suddenly rolling about in my belly.

It wasn't like Medea, either, who had killed her brother and chopped him up into — okay, no, _bad_ time to be thinking about that one — because some bitch of a goddess had screwed up her fucking mind worse than _Heartbreaker_ , these guys did it without _flinching_. They spent every day coming up with new and inventive ways to _kill you_ before you could even _see it coming_.

Fuck… Just… Okay…

I took deep breaths and tried not to think about it too much. Somehow, I managed to keep myself from throwing up, and it was probably because I hadn't gotten more than a glimpse at their histories.

But seriously. _Assassins_. How the _fuck_ did they count as _heroes_?

Just…

Deep breaths.

Once I'd managed to calm down a few minutes later, I reached out and through myself again, grasping at my power, and looked at all of my stealth options _besides_ those nineteen guys taking the title of "Hassan."

My stomach churned again, but I forced myself to stay calm.

Because the other guys weren't much better. Or at least, there seemed to be some kind of correlation between "assassin" and "stealthy." The further and further away you got from "assassin," the lower and lower the value of the hero's "stealth" became. Sure, there were outliers — both King Arthur and Siegfried had a kind of invisibility cloak — but those outliers tended to be good at only one aspect of stealth and terrible at the others. Both King Arthur and Siegfried, for example, could turn invisible, yes, but neither one was particularly practiced at walking around without making noise or masking their scent and stuff like that.

That…didn't work for me. I needed someone who was good at _all_ aspects of sneaking — and, unfortunately, those nineteen Hassan guys seemed like the best bet. If I could only choose between assassins, I'd _certainly_ prefer a professional over a deranged madman like _Jack the Ripper_.

Just… Okay. If I didn't really have any other options…

 _Damn it._

"Alright," I said, swallowing nervously. "I need… I need the version of Hassan with the weakest ego."

Immediately, my other options dropped and I was left with one, single person: Hassan of the Hundred Faces.

For an instant, I hesitated, because, hello, _assassin_. Then, steeling my nerves, I grasped at him and examined his powers and history. And in seconds, I understood why my power had singled him out as having the "weakest ego": he'd split his mind into about eighty different pieces, each with its own personality.

Good grief, what were these people _doing_ to themselves? Splitting their minds into nearly a hundred pieces, turning their bodies into poison, transforming their arms into some freaky, elongated… _thing_ that killed people by crushing symbolic hearts — the hell where they _on_?

I frowned and worried on my bottom lip.

But that was good, wasn't it? If I was understanding this right, the Hundred-Faced Hassan's personalities were unified enough that they could all work together towards a common goal, but separate enough and split evenly enough that no single one of them had stronger influence over the whole than the others.

I had no idea what it would mean or how it would affect them when _I_ was the one defining the goal, but…but, well, there was no way to find out just by standing there and twiddling my thumbs, right?

I glanced towards the clock. I'd already wasted almost half an hour.

Right. Right. This was just me waffling and being nervous, and maybe that was only natural, because, hell, my first Install since the Locker was only a couple _days_ ago, but it wouldn't get me anywhere. Just like I had with Installing in the first place, I was letting my fears and my worries limit what I could do, and I couldn't afford to do that, anymore.

I steeled myself.

"Right. Alright. I'm going to give it a try."

I reached out and through myself, grasped the Hundred-Faced Hassan.

"Set. Install."

The change was instantaneous, lengthening my limbs, drawing my muscles tight, sweeping my hair up into a tail. I felt a mask settle on my face, forming from nothing, and when it was all over, I was an even taller, lean-limbed specter, with smoky black skin and clothes that seemed woven from shadow. When I inspected my physique, I found muscle definition that could give _bodybuilders_ envy, and a wiry, sinuous grace that reminded more of a cat than a human being.

Best of all, the presence in the back of my head was muted and quiescent. It had no strong feelings whatsoever, only a calm focus that help _me_ focus, to the point that I wondered, for a second, what I'd even been worried about.

"Alright. Yeah. I can do this."

I crossed my room almost silently, grabbing the spare backpack I'd been saving for the day the Trio ruined _another_ one on the way, and slid the window open just enough, then slipped out with a move that probably would have made _Olympic gymnasts_ green and landed on the lawn below with only the slightest of sounds.

I waited for a moment, holding my breath, but nothing happened. The lights did not suddenly flip on in Dad's room, his voice did not suddenly call out for me. I was in the clear.

I let my breath go, then started for the warehouse. I was a ghost as I moved, barely more than a whisper on the wind, there and gone by the time you looked to see what had brushed against the grass or flickered past your window. If you glimpsed me, you might think me a trick of the light or a figment of the imagination.

I supposed that was the point. None of the Hassan would have been any good at what they did if they were easily spotted or noticed.

All told, it took me about fifteen or twenty minutes to make my way to the warehouse, a journey that would have taken more than an hour in my own body and maybe even longer on a bus that had to stop regularly for traffic and passengers.

When I came upon it, it was no different than it was during the day. It certainly _looked_ darker and more foreboding, but there were no new signs or boards or anything, and when I slipped inside the door like a snake slithering through the cracks, there were no squatters huddling around cheap lanterns or gang thugs lighting up in the corners. The only _real_ difference was the lighting: during the day, when the sun was out, it was more than bright enough to see what I was doing, but at night, with only the moon and the stars to guide me, the entire place was blanketed in shadow and shade.

Fortunately, Hassan of the Hundred Faces had excellent night vision. He had to, if I was guessing, or else he couldn't have been anywhere near as effective as he had been. Or was supposed to have been? I was still kind of dubious about even the _possibility_ that these heroes — for a certain value of the word, given Hassan and his kind — had once been real people.

In any case, Hassan's night vision spared me a lot of trouble I might have had otherwise trying to find resources in the dark. And, just to make it easier on myself —

 **Delusional Illusion**

"Zabaniya."

— I used his Noble Phantasm to split myself into a group of ten. My duplicates — and it was a bit surreal even to see them — set off without a word and began the task of rooting through the trash and the debris for useful materials for transmutation. A moment later, I picked a direction that wasn't being covered and started looking, too.

A few minutes later, I had two rusty rods of steel rebar and a circular…thing that looked like it had come off of a pipe of some kind.

"That was fast," I remarked to myself and…myself. That…would probably never stop being _odd_. "I thought it would take much longer."

The rebar had come from one of the concrete pillars holding the roof up. It was missing a large chunk from the one corner, probably where, if I knew anything about science and chemistry, water had seeped into a crack, then frozen, expanded, and just worked its way through. This place _had_ been abandoned for something like twenty years, after all.

"Still…"

It had come off a little _too_ easily. I'd expected to have to fight with it, or failing that, switch to Medea or something and use some precision spellcasting to cut it out of the pillar. A few quick slices with Hassan's dagger — what was that thing _made_ of, it hadn't even _chipped_ — and a good, hard yank or two, however, and it had come right out.

It seemed that _all_ my heroes had some level of super strength. Because why not?

"Gift horses, mouths — I'm not inspecting this one," I muttered. I wasn't about to question it when things went my way, I was just going to smile and take it as good luck.

I stuffed the rebar and the circle thing into the backpack I'd brought, then took another quick look around, but I had enough for what I was planning, and if tonight was any indication, it wouldn't be _too_ hard to come back for more, should I need to, so I didn't bother grabbing anything else. A brief thought, a minor exertion of will, and my duplicates all vanished back into shadow, gone, unless and until I need them again.

I hefted the backpack over my shoulders and left the way I came.

It was another fifteen or twenty minutes to make it back home, and when I got there, I scaled the wall with ease and slithered back in through my window. There were no new lights on and everything was the same as it was when I left. Dad hadn't woken up at all.

I slid the window closed behind me and it whispered shut, then I carefully set the backpack on my bed and stepped out into the middle of my room.

"Release."

I said it softly, and in an instant, I was back to being Taylor Hebert, standing there in my pajamas.

My feet didn't even have time to get cold before I was reaching out for a new hero: Nicolas Flamel.

"Set. Install."

Paradoxically, I shrank an inch or two, different from how it normally was with my male heroes. I also experienced the extremely strange sensation of aging almost thirty years in a single instant — I felt the wrinkles form around my mouth and my eyes, saw the strands of grey that streaked through my hair, almost _hear_ the creak of my bones as the passage of time weakened them. My pajamas vanished and were replaced with long, red silk robes, lined with black and decorated with designs done in rich gold.

I knew why, too. Nicolas was not like my other heroes, who had all formed through me in the bloom of youth, the peak of their strength and power. Their legends all occurred and were remembered from their prime, when they were at their best and brightest, when they could fight to the utmost.

Nicolas was an older man, and he was remembered as an older man. Wise, knowledgeable, because it was not until later in life when he was said to have created the legendary philosopher's stone. And so the form he took was that of a man entering his twilight years, but not quite there yet — a respected, tenured lecturer and teacher, rather than an old sage.

I let out a breath. It was a little…odd, to be well into middle age before I was even twenty. Odd, but strangely satisfying. It made me feel more mature.

"Alright." I grabbed the backpack again, fished out my supplies, and set them down on the spare sheet I'd laid out earlier that night. It would be the first time I worked in my room, rather than the basement or the warehouse. "Let's see what we can do."

Alchemical formulae and processes filled my head as I let Nicolas' knowledge flow into me, and I got to work. This was going to be _so awesome_.

It was a little after five in the morning when I clumsily stuffed the half-finished pendant in my desk drawer, before climbing into bed. It was about an hour and a half later, just as it seemed I had finally fallen asleep, when my alarm blared and told me to get up.

I rolled over and groaned, utterly exhausted. I felt like I hadn't slept at all, and I didn't want to even _think_ about pulling myself out of bed, so I just lied there and politely asked the sun to go back down and give me a few more hours.

When Dad came in to check on me, I muttered something about not feeling well and asked to stay home from school for the day, because there was no way in _hell_ I was going to try and deal with the Trio's shit on less than an hour's worth of sleep.

After giving me a few comforting pats on the head, Dad went back downstairs with the promise that he would call in sick for me, and whatever guilt I might have felt for lying was washed out by the relief at having a day where I _didn't_ have to face my bullies. _Especially_ when I was so tired.

As I rolled back over and closed my eyes again, I decided drowsily that if I was going to be spending long nights experimenting with my powers, I needed something that would let me get up the next day fresh and wide awake.

The pendant would have to be put on hold, for now. The next thing I was going to enchant was my bed.

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

 **EDIT: Okay, so I've been getting lots of reviews wondering, and I thought it was already obvious, but I'll say it here to make it clear: Pendulum chapters are flashbacks. The reason this feels like Taylor's first foray with the Hundred-Faced Hassan is because it _is_. This particular chapter takes place in late February.**

 **Hm, it _does_ feel a little unfinished, like I could have added some more here or there or expanded some bits, but not only would that really inflate the chapter, most of the summarized bits are places without much interesting happening. I may come back some day and open up the part with Danny coming in and Taylor asking to take a sick day, but for now, I think this will do.**

 **I know a complaint of the last Pendulum chapter was that it kind of deflated the tension between arcs 2 and 3, but fortunately, that shouldn't be a problem, here. Arc 5 starts after a short timeskip, anyway.**

 **Here, we see the genesis of both the pendant and several of Taylor's other projects. Mainly the pendant, though.**

 **As always, read, review, and enjoy.**

 **And for early access to chapters and bonus content:**

 **p a treon . com (slash) James_D_Fawkes**


	35. Sunder 5-1

**Sunder 5.1**

[Let there be Five-fold Perfections upon each Repetition.]

Class was over in five minutes, and all I could think was, _An hour is way too long for lunch._

I had no idea what I was supposed to do with that much time when it would only take me ten or fifteen minutes to eat my food. How was I supposed to spend all of that extra time? This was my first day at Arcadia, and I didn't know anyone here, so it wasn't like I had any friends to talk to. That girl who had shown me around this morning had been nice enough (what was her name? Chloe? Claire? Kim?), but it wasn't like we had exchanged friendship bracelets and promised to be BFFs or anything like that.

How ironic. I'd finally gotten into Arcadia, the best school in the city, and even with the Trio nowhere in sight, lunch was _still_ my least favorite period of the day.

I let out a breath through my nose as I watched the teacher, Mister Zimmerman, a stocky black man with close-cropped hair and a neatly trimmed salt-and-pepper beard, babble on about whatever the topic was, but I wasn't really paying him any attention. The notebook spread open on my desk was empty, but for a few doodles I'd absentmindedly drawn earlier.

It wasn't like I wasn't grateful to Armsmaster and the Protectorate and the PRT, or whatever combination thereof, for fast-tracking my application. Being bored at Arcadia was a thousand times better than dodging bullies at Winslow. It was just that…it didn't _feel_ all that different, in some ways. Even if one was a thousand times better, I was still alone, either way. The only thing different was the reason why.

" _As a show of good faith, we'll be fast-tracking your application to Arcadia,"_ Armsmaster had told me, just before I left for home that night. Dad had apparently put one in before the whole fiasco with Bakuda, but those normally took weeks or months or even until the next school year to be _considered_ , let alone accepted, so at the time, to hear that they were going to push mine through as fast as possible had been a silver lining to an otherwise horrible day.

Except, now that I was here, it didn't really feel like something to get excited about.

Maybe that was just me complaining, though. School have never been…fun, exactly, ever since Emma and her flunkies had decided I was their own, personal verbal punching bag, so I'd kinda gotten used to just…dealing and surviving and getting through the day. There'd been nothing to enjoy, not when I had to always be prepared for whatever prank was waiting for me just around the corner.

I was at Arcadia, now, and Emma could never bother me again, and even if I knew that intellectually, I couldn't help but feel like it was only a matter of time until the other shoe dropped.

The bell rang suddenly, jerking me from my thoughts. Around me, everyone started shutting their books and their notepads and stacking them for easier carrying. Belatedly, I began to follow suit, and up at the front, Mister Zimmerman raised his voice.

"All right, class!" he called. "Remember, there's a test on this next Monday! I expect you to finish the reading assignments on your own time, because we _will_ be going over everything for the rest of the week!"

The words hung in the air for a moment, and everyone in the class waited impatiently to see if there was anything else, then he smiled, gestured to the door with his head, and said, "Okay, get out of here."

As my classmates surged to their feet and started the stampede for the door, he added, "And have a good lunch!"

I got up a little more sedately. It felt weird not to be rushing to be one of the first ones out, so that I could lose Madison or one of the Trio's other, peripheral flunkies and find somewhere to eat where I was least likely to be disturbed. As I slung my bag over my shoulder, however, I decided that even if it was weird, I much preferred it to the alternative.

I was just about to join the throng of students when I heard Mister Zimmerman again. "Miss Hebert, if you could stay behind a moment?"

For an instant, I froze and my heart skipped a beat, before ratcheting up several notches. I was suddenly reminded uncomfortably of Mister Gladly's half-hearted, abortive attempt at "help" two weeks ago, of his offer of assistance and the subsequent _abandonment_ not ten minutes later. Every instinct honed at Winslow told me I should pretend I hadn't heard and keep going.

It was a conscious effort to remember that this was _Arcadia_. Not only was it the best school in the city, but I'd only been here a few _hours_ , and I didn't know anyone here. There were no bullies (yet) for him to offer his help with. More likely, he just wanted to discuss classwork or my test scores, and that…that was easy.

So, I stepped away from the throng and back into an empty row of desks, waiting until the crowd had pushed its way through the classroom door, until the last few stragglers had finished asking whatever they needed from him. When at last even those handful had gone, he turned to me and gestured for me to come closer.

I hesitated for a moment, then walked up to the front of his desk, where he had sat down. He folded his hands as I approached and looked up at me, an expression of utter seriousness on his face.

"So," said Mister Zimmerman.

I swallowed nervously. "Yes?"

He worked his lips, as though considering how to phrase what he wanted to say.

"I'm not sure anyone has informed you, yet," he admitted at length, "but I and your other teachers have already been told about your situation in Winslow."

…I had no idea how to react to that. "What?"

"When the school was asked to accept your application as swiftly as possible and get you settled in as soon as we could," he clarified, "the principal — who forwarded it to all of your teachers — received a report regarding the…occurrences at Winslow that led to your transfer. Not all of the fine details, of course, barring the January incident —"

Something in my stomach squirmed. He was talking about the Locker.

"— but we're well aware of the broad strokes regarding your circumstances."

"O-oh."

"So we understand that this transitionary period might be a little rough for you," he went on. "To help make it as smooth as possible, Principal Howell has asked that we keep an eye on you and give you a little slack, where possible. So, if you're not comfortable taking next Monday's test, I'm willing to let you skip it."

I blinked, surprised, and more than a little thrown by an offer like that. At Winslow…I didn't think I'd _ever_ had a teacher do something like this.

It was _surreal_.

"O-oh. Okay. Um, thank you."

" _However_ ," he stressed, looking me in the eye, "I _do_ expect you to take, _and_ pass, the final exam at the end of next month. In the meantime, if you need anything or you have any concerns, feel free to bring them to me and I'll do my best to help you. Okay?"

I felt myself nod.

"Uh, yeah. Yeah, I'll do that."

"Okay, then." He nodded, too. "Now, I think I've kept you from your lunch long enough. I'll see you tomorrow."

"Uh, right."

I hesitated for a moment, waiting for him to say something else or drop another bomb on me, but he turned away and started organizing his papers, so I readjusted the strap of my bag, turned to the door, and left.

The dream-like haze that swam about my head followed me all the way to the cafeteria. It still didn't feel quite real, to have a teacher actually, honestly offer me aid. I'd gotten so used to teachers never lifting so much as a finger to help, and on the rare occasion one of them _did_ , it was often like Mister Gladly's — half-hearted, ineffectual, and utterly useless.

But now, there were no pranks waiting around every corner, no tittering girls doing their best to ruin my day, no personal attacks or attempts at stealing or sabotaging my work — _no Trio_. And the teachers were helpful and nice and actually seemed to care about doing their jobs rather than just collecting a paycheck or being popular…

I honestly didn't know what to think. A part of me believed this had to be a dream, that I would get through the day at Arcadia, a normal, bully-free day where I didn't have to worry about spitballs or juice being poured over me or snide comments in the halls, only to wake up in my bed and realize it was time to go back to Winslow.

The cacophony of voices that filled the cafeteria was audible long before I got there, and at the last stretch, the final corner I needed to turn, the feeling surreality faded and I hesitated, biting my lip, as long-honed habit stayed my feet.

It had been almost two years since I'd last eaten inside a cafeteria, and with good reason: it was too open and I was too easy a target. More than once, in those early days, had Emma or one of her friends "accidentally" spilled their trays all over me, or they sat down at the same table and loudly talked about how I was a loser as though I wasn't there, and when the indirect method wasn't fun, they insulted me outright.

It hadn't taken me long to start eating in bathrooms or on the roof or in empty classrooms, where I wouldn't be noticed and they couldn't easily find me. It had become so ingrained that I probably would have done it here just on instinct, if I had known the school better than I did.

But…this was Arcadia, I told myself. There was no Trio here to torture me. No bullies to ruin my lunch. I could eat wherever I damn well _pleased_ , and I wasn't about to let the mere _memory_ of my tormentors drive me away from _anywhere_.

So, I squared my shoulders, set my mouth into a grim, determined line, and steeled myself, and as I turned the corner, walked down the hall, and entered the cafeteria, I decided that there was nothing in this school that was going to prevent me from eating there ever again. _Nothing_.

The moment I was inside, I cast around the room for a place to sit, an empty spot where I could eat in peace. Really, any empty chair would do, as long as I wasn't running afoul of someone's tightly knit clique.

Halfway through my search, I froze.

…Nothing except that, I amended.

Because floating along a few inches off the ground, chatting it up with a handsome blond boy as she carried her tray, was Victoria Dallon.

Glory Girl.

Who I had not been on particularly good terms with, last time we'd seen each other. Considering we had both tried to punch each other's faces in, that…was probably the understatement of the century.

Would she try and pick a fight with me? I had no idea. I wasn't sure how I was supposed to avoid blowing my secret identity out of the water if she did.

Just as importantly, if Glory Girl was here, then…

A thrill of nervousness shot through my belly.

Amy.

In hindsight, it was really stupid that I hadn't considered it before. After all, New Wave certainly wouldn't send their kids to _Winslow_ , of all places. And since it was something of an open secret that the Wards went to Arcadia, it only made sense that the Dallons did, too.

Great. Just great. What was I supposed to do now?

I was halfway through turning around to leave when I caught myself and stopped.

Was my resolve really that flimsy? Was my courage really that easily dispelled?

I had faced down Lung and come out the victor. I had given Sophia and Emma a tongue-lashing that had left them _speechless_. I had fought an Alexandria-style Brute with nothing but my own strength and speed. I had faced a mad bomb Tinker on her own turf and a teleporting assassin who nearly _killed_ me.

No, I decided, and I spun back around on my heel, then strode with purpose towards an empty seat. I said that _nothing_ was going to stop me from eating my lunch in here from now on, and so _nothing_ was going to stop me.

I sat down with a finality, plopping myself forcefully in the chair I'd chosen, and perhaps more aggressively than necessary, I grabbed my lunchbag and started pulling out my lunch. The poor apple that was my first victim had done nothing to deserve the viciousness with which I bit into it, except that it happened to be the first thing I laid my hands on.

In spite of any worries I might have had, no one came to my table to bother me while I ate, not even Victoria Dallon, and slowly, I started to relax. By the time I was halfway through my lunch, I'd eased off of the brisk, savage pace into something more reasonable — and for the first time in nearly two years, I had the chance to really, truly enjoy eating it, rather than wolfing it down as quickly as possible.

I was still done fairly quickly. Old habits were hard to break, after all.

And, just as I'd been thinking in class, once I was finished, I had nearly three-quarters of an hour to spend and not much to spend it on. The empty seats around me were little more comfort than the empty stalls of the girls' bathrooms at Winslow.

So, without anything else to do, I retreated back into a familiar comfort — a novel, a copy of _Sir Gawain and the Green Knight_ , actually, so it also doubled as research for my heroes. I pulled it out, propped it open on the table in front of me, and started to read.

I had to admit, going into it, I'd expected I would like Lancelot or Tristan more than the others, mostly because…well, it was kind of a stupid reason, but because their stories were centered around romance and love a lot. And what little girl _didn't_ dream of being a princess swept off her feet by a knight on a white horse coming to slay the dragon?

The reality of it, of what was _really_ in those stories, wasn't that neat or clean. Lancelot was an adulterer, and kind of selfish about it, too. It was also strongly implied, when it wasn't outright stated, that Lancelot's affair with Guinevere was one of the major reasons why Camelot fell, and when a lot of versions of the story told of Arthur's kingdom as some utopia on Earth, that made Lancelot…kind of a dick, really. The prosperity of Arthur's benevolent rule, ruined because one guy couldn't keep it in his pants.

To be fair, it wasn't like Gawain was really a beacon of saintly virtue. Sure, he was a lot less selfish than Lancelot was about things like love — at least, in most of the stories, and all of the ones I'd managed to read — but he was also what my peers would call "a player." So while I much preferred Gawain's more chivalrous, pure-hearted nature, I wouldn't want to be his love interest, either, because that seemed to change in every single story.

For what it was worth, Lancelot, at least, only had eyes for one woman.

"Uh, hey."

A timid voice broke me out of my thoughts, and I blinked away from my book to look up into the face of the very person I'd been dreading seeing: Amy Dallon.

My heart skipped a beat. Amy fidgeted a little nervously under my stare.

"Mind if I sit here?" she asked, gesturing to the empty chair across from me.

It was then that I realized she was carrying a tray full of food with her, and when I glanced over, it was to find that the line of people waiting to get their food was only now starting to shrink.

I looked back at Amy. There were dark circles under her eyes, which she hadn't seemed to try hiding with makeup, and her face was drawn and pale, setting her freckles in stark relief against her nose and cheeks. She had the appearance of someone who hadn't slept well in a long time. I found myself wondering if that was new, or if she'd been like that from the start and I just hadn't noticed it before.

Belatedly, as she started to fidget, I remembered that she'd asked to sit with me, and I hurried to answer her, "Um, yeah, sure."

She hesitated for only a moment, then set her tray down and slid into the chair across from me.

"So," she said.

"So," I repeated, for lack of anything better to say.

My stomach churned. Lisa _had_ said that Amy would eventually come back, try again, but if Oni Lee had proven anything, it was that Lisa wasn't _always_ right.

"So," I tried, "you're not going to sit with…with your sister?"

I wasn't sure, exactly, what to call Victoria Dallon. "Vicky" seemed rather personal, an assumption of intimacy, and we…weren't exactly on speaking terms.

Amy snorted. "No," she told me with an undercurrent of disgust. "She and Dean are busy making kissy faces at each other. I wanted to eat, not lose my appetite."

As though to punctuate her point, she grabbed a single french fry and shoved the whole thing into her mouth at once.

"Oh." I could understand her position. Emma had broken things between us before I could ever experience that awkwardness myself, but I'd always found lovey-dovey scenes in movies hard to sit through. "So, why sit with me, then?"

"Well, I _did_ want to talk to you last week, but I realized when I went digging for your phone number that you never actually gave it to me," she said dryly. She grimaced. "And, um, I couldn't find you on PHO, and I didn't know which Hebert you were in the phone book…"

"Oh." But still… "Why, though?"

Amy blinked, nonplussed. "Why?"

"Did you want to talk to me," I clarified. "When you left that Friday, you didn't really seem…"

Happy? Friendly? Like you even wanted to ever see me again? Was there a way to put it that didn't make me sound like a jilted lover?

"Oh, um." Amy looked away, embarrassed. She fidgeted a little with another french fry. "Well, I… I gave it some thought. And I realized that I, uh, never actually gave you a chance to prove any of it? Well, a-as much as you _can_ prove the whole…magical oath thing without supposedly cursing someone to die a horrible death. And it wasn't like you could show me any of the other stuff in the middle of a restaurant."

…No, tempting as it might be, forcing _Bakuda_ to break hers was _not_ a viable method of proving my powers to Amy. For a lot of reasons, not the least of which was that it was something _she_ might do.

"And I, uh, also realized something else, too."

I frowned.

"Something else?"

"That I never wanted to know…" she trailed off, then leaned forward, and so did I, " _Apocrypha_ ," and then she leaned back, again, "in the first place. Just like you were never interested in Panacea. I wanted to get to know Taylor. So even though that bullshit the Friday before last pissed me off, I decided it didn't matter, because it's cape business, and we're just…just Taylor and Amy, right?"

"Just Taylor and Amy, huh…?" I muttered. Almost against my will, I found myself starting to smile.

That sounded…kind of nice, actually. To have another friend. Especially with things with Lisa being in the state they were in. And it wasn't like having a friend who knew and didn't care about me being Apocrypha didn't appeal in a big way.

There was just, ah, one thing that kind of needed to be addressed, though.

"And what about your sister?" I asked. "She and I didn't exactly…meet on the best of terms."

She scowled, viciously stabbed the ketchup on her plate with a french fry.

" _Vicky_ doesn't get any say in the matter," Amy said matter-of-factly. "She got herself grounded for that stunt she pulled at the bank. No patrols, no _dates_ , for the next month. She's barely allowed to ferry me to the hospital and back. So I don't care if she doesn't like it, she'll just have to deal."

"Oh," I said simply, for lack of anything better.

Should I say, "Good," because at least Glory Girl was being punished for what happened, or should I feel guilty that she'd been punished because I had to let Lisa get away? I wasn't sure I was feeling all that charitable, though, because she _had_ bowled me over, first, even if the broken arm had been as much my fault as hers.

But, uh, I didn't think that was something I should say to her sister. "Oh, she's being punished for turning my arm into mulch? Good." Yeah, that felt kind of mean. And, uh, not…a good way to start off a friendship.

"So," Amy said into the awkward silence.

"So," I repeated again.

The silence stretched again. Amy scowled and shook her head.

"Fuck it," she said coarsely. She shoved a hand over in my direction. "Let's try this again. Hi, I'm Amy. I hate piña coladas, but I don't mind getting caught in the rain."

I hesitated only a moment, then took it. "Hi, Amy, I'm Taylor. I don't mind long walks on the beach, but I prefer curling up with a good book. It's nice to meet you."

Amy smiled, at first, but it quickly morphed into a grimace and she jerked her hand away to rub at her temples. "Fuck, again? Why is it _worse_ , this time?"

Oh. Right.

I looked down at my hand, flexed my fingers.

Something about Aífe's martial arts made me…weird, to Amy's biology sensing power. Gave her headaches or something. And made me — or parts of me, at least — invisible to her.

"I, uh, I've been practicing," I told her quietly.

" _Practicing_?" she asked, face twisting with surprised disbelief. "You mean, you can get _better_ at that stuff you were doing?"

I coughed awkwardly. "Technically, I haven't even mastered it, yet…"

Amy stared, and her mouth flapped several times without sound. Eventually, she managed a weak, "Huh?"

"I guess, where I'm at would be something like a red belt, in regular karate?" I admitted. "Um, maybe? I'm not really sure, it might be first degree black belt. That is, uh, I've got the important stuff down, the rest is just expanding my technique? I'm, uh, I don't really know what the equivalent of that is in regular martial arts, so…"

I was starting to ramble, so I cut myself off.

Amy continued to stare. "You… Where were you at, at the bank?"

I bit my bottom lip and chewed at it for a moment, debating how to put it. It always sounded weird, to me, that Aífe's Aite Láechrad put it in terms of letter ranks, but it wasn't like I had a better or more accurate system. Replacing it with numbers wouldn't really make it make any more sense, either.

"If I had to measure it from A to E," I told her at length, "then C-Rank. I'm still at the upper edges of B, right now. I'd be A-Rank, but I spent all of last week studying and taking placement tests, so…"

"You…" Amy started. "You fought an Alexandria-type Brute and Mover, a girl who can bench-press a _cement truck_ and fly faster than a _speeding car_ , and you were only _C-Rank_ in those martial arts of yours?"

"…Yes?"

She laughed helplessly. "Fuck, what even _is_ your power?"

I flushed and looked away, because…well, yeah, when I gave it any real thought, it _did_ seem kind of ridiculous. And with Aífe, the rate at which I could learn anything I put my mind to would seem completely…

I stopped. A thought occurred to me. Aífe's Noble Phantasm let me learn with incredible speed, yes, but I learned even faster when I was teaching someone, to the point where several weekends worth of training had been finished in an afternoon —

"Would you…like me to teach you?" I asked Amy.

— and if my speed of learning increased so dramatically with just _one_ student, how much faster would it be with two?

Amy just stared at me for a moment, like she wasn't sure she'd heard me right. I didn't think I could blame her — there weren't that many capes who had the power to share or give out powers, the only ones I could even think of were Othala and the infamous Teacher, and neither of them also happened to be an Eidolon tier Trump, either.

Meekly, she uttered a simple, "What?"

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

 **Watch out for that timeskip. It's not a big one, but it's there.**

 **An arc later, Amy returns. For good? We'll see.**

 **How about super Kung Fu Panacea? Will Amy accept Taylor's offer of martial arts training? Find out next time!**

 **...No, seriously, that's answered in the first paragraph of next chapter.**

 **There were a few things I wanted to fit into this chapter, regarding the aftermath of Bakuda and Amy's part in it, but I just couldn't find a way to fit it in.**

 **As always, read, review, and enjoy.**

 **And for early access to chapters and bonus content:**

 **p a treon . com (slash) James_D_Fawkes**


	36. Sunder 5-2

**Sunder 5.2**

Despite any worries I might have had, Victoria Dallon did _not_ come over and try to start something by the time lunch had ended. Amy and I — who had, kind of disappointingly, said no to my offer of martial arts training — got to talk completely and entirely uninterrupted for the remainder of lunch, which, when the bell finally tolled for us to go back to class, seemed suddenly like it was much too short.

Funny how that worked.

We parted ways for our afternoon classes on fairly good terms. Things were still a little awkward, and I didn't think either of us had quite figured out how to stay off the topic of powers, just yet, but I left the cafeteria with an overall good feeling. Now, I not only no longer had a reason to _avoid_ the cafeteria, I actually had a reason to _eat there_.

It wasn't perfect and it wasn't easy, like it had been with Lisa, but then, neither Amy nor I had any kind of power that made it child's play to skirt around touchy subjects or find places of common ground to bond over. We had to do it the crude, old-fashioned way, which meant sometimes stepping on the figurative landmine.

My afternoon classes were just as normal as my morning classes. Well, normal for regular people, anyway, which meant no bullies, no pranks, none of the things that had been my everyday life for nearly two years.

It was a strange feeling, not having to watch my back every second of the day, but not an unwelcome one. It was also going to take a lot of getting used to, though — the habits I'd formed and the instincts I'd honed at Winslow would be hard to break from, but I was looking forward to it.

When the bell announcing the end of the day finally rang, I was, for once, among the students getting ready to leave, rather than already at home, and I found that I couldn't really remember the last time I'd stayed the whole school day since the Trio's tender mercies first started. It was another odd feeling, and it carried with it a faint note of pride at having lasted the whole day.

Mom would be happy with that, I found myself thinking. It was a bittersweet thought. She'd be happy that my education was getting back on track.

I made my way through Arcadia's hallways at a sedate pace, completely unlike the brisk walk at which I'd left Winslow two weeks ago. There was no rushing to leave and escape before the Trio found me, no hurry to get out before they could play one of their pranks. I didn't have to go any faster than I wanted to.

When I left through the front doors, it was to find Amy waiting on at the top of the steps, a backpack slung over one shoulder and the fingers of her other hand playing with the hem of her red cardigan restlessly, like they were used to holding something that wasn't there.

The moment she saw me, she smiled a tired little smile. "Hey."

"Hey…" I replied uncertainly.

I glanced around, but there was no sign of her sister. I wasn't sure what that meant, exactly.

Had they had a falling out? I hadn't asked during lunch.

"Headed my way?" she asked.

"Your way?"

"The bus stop," she clarified. Her jaw worked a little nervously. "I, uh, figured we could…talk some more. On the way, I mean, and while we waited. But if you don't want to, that's totally fine, I can go by myself —"

"No, no, it's fine!" I rushed to assure her. "I, uh, was actually going to run home, today, but I can walk to the bus stop with you, first. It's just, uh…"

I hesitated. Her brow furrowed.

"Just what?"

"Where's, uh, Vicky?"

Amy snorted.

"Vicky's _grounded_ , on account of the stuff at the bank," she said like that explained everything. "That means something a _little_ different when you live in a family of fliers. She's not allowed to go on patrol, she's not allowed to go on dates with her boyfriend, and except for taking me to and from the hospital, she's not allowed to _fly_."

I blinked, surprised, and in hindsight, surprised that I was surprised, because it _did_ make a degree of sense. "What, really?"

"Yes, really," said Amy. "Grounded for a month. Then, when she tried to sneak out to go see Dean and got caught by Carol — uh, my mom, I mean — she got another month added to it. So, since she won't get to see her boyfriend outside of school for the next two months, she's taking every chance she gets to spend time with him — including having him drive her home."

Well, how did you punish someone with superpowers, except to forbid them from using those powers? I could only imagine would it must be like for her, told she couldn't fly for two months. It must have been torture.

I didn't feel _too_ bad, though. That broken arm hadn't been fun, by any stretch of the imagination.

"Huh," I said. "And she's just left you here to take the bus?"

"I volunteered," Amy told me dryly. "Kissy faces, remember? You can just bet they 'conveniently' get lost, once or twice, just so they have an excuse to pull over and make out for a few minutes. In the choice between watching that and public transportation, I'll take public transportation."

I would, too.

I could only imagine what it would be like, to be stuck in the backseat of a car while your sister sucked face with a boy. How awkward it would feel. Especially if they were _Frenching_ , ugh. I wouldn't want to be around that any more than Amy did.

"So," she said, "we going?"

I blinked, then realized that we'd just been standing around the whole time. The other students had long since left, save for the handful that were probably in some sort of club or another.

"Oh. Yeah. Right."

Amy turned and started down the steps, and I fell in line next to her without a word. The nearest bus stop was a few blocks over, but it was still close enough that it wasn't that far a walk.

We went the entire first block in awkward silence. Neither of us, it seemed, was very good at holding a conversation, or starting one, for that matter, which I could blame on the last two-ish years of Emma and her friends and Amy… Amy, I guessed, just wasn't very good with people.

I had to wonder how she dealt with the people she healed, in that case. That sounded like the worst possible field you could be in, when you weren't that great at interacting with others.

Finally, at length, she spoke. "So…"

"So…" I repeated.

"I guess…" She cut herself off and let out a self-deprecating laugh. "Fuck, I'm terrible at this, aren't I?"

I made an amused sound in the back of my throat. "No more than I am."

"I noticed," she said dryly.

 _Well, I have Emma Barnes and two years of hell as my excuse_ , I almost said, _what's yours?_

But that was unfair to Amy and it opened up a can of worms I wasn't ready to discuss, just yet. I'd learned my lesson with Lisa.

"Well, let's start with something simple," I suggested instead.

"Like what?"

"Like…favorite color, hobbies, that sort of thing?"

Amy snorted. "That's a little cliché, don't you think?"

I frowned at her. "Well, unless you've got a better idea…"

"No, no, I didn't mean it like that," she rushed to explain. "Cliché doesn't mean _bad_ , just…you know?"

"I guess…"

I wasn't sure I did, really, but admitting it probably wouldn't be very helpful.

"So, um, let's go with that, then. Favorite colors and stuff."

"Um, okay…? Do you…want me to start?"

"If you, uh, don't mind, I guess?"

"Okay," I said. "Um. My favorite color is, uh…"

…I wasn't sure. Nothing really jumped out at me when I thought about it.

"…Purple, I guess."

"You guess?" Amy asked skeptically. "Like you're not sure?"

"Well, I mean," I replied a little defensively, "I haven't thought about it in a while, and lots of stuff changed after… Well, _after_."

I made a vague gesture with my right hand, but Amy seemed to catch on.

"Oh. After your… _trigger_."

"Yeah…" I trailed off. I didn't want to get onto that particular subject. "But, um, the hero I use the most is Medea of Colchis, and she wears a lot of purple, so…I…guess it's kind of grown on me?"

"Medea of Colchis?" There was a note of confusion in Amy's voice. "I think I remember her from one of my literature courses. Wasn't she, like, a _massive_ bitch? Did a whole bunch of awful stuff?"

"No," I told her, perhaps a little harder than necessary. "She was a victim. What happened to her was like…like one of the women _Heartbreaker_ kidnaps. Everything she did after that came from the fact that she was forced to obsessively love Jason. You can't blame her for stuff she did when she was basically _Mastered_."

"Oh." Amy cleared her throat. "Right. Anyway. Uh, favorite colors. Mine is…blue."

I glanced at her.

"Any particular reason why?"

She smiled. A soft, bittersweet, barely there thing that did nothing to hint at her inner thoughts.

"No. No real reason, I guess."

I didn't bother calling her on the lie. If she didn't feel like sharing, I wasn't going to pry.

"Okay," I said. "So, um, hobbies. Well, I…like to read. Um, if you couldn't tell by the book I was reading earlier."

Amy smirked. "I noticed."

"My mom was a literature professor, so it was kind of inevitable."

"Was?"

"She, um…"

"Oh." A wince. "Sorry."

"It's okay." It wasn't. But I was better about it than I was three years ago. "I read a lot of stuff, but fantasy is my favorite."

"Like?"

" _The Lord of the Rings_ , _Harry Potter_ — the Aleph versions, at least. When I was younger, _The Chronicles of Narnia_ , too, although I kind of fell out of them, after _Voyage of the Dawn Treader_."

"The staples of any childhood," Amy said dryly.

I laughed.

"Mine, at least," I said. "I've read the classics, too, of course."

"Of course."

" _Dracula, Frankenstein_. I never could get into the movies, though."

"Why not?"

"Too much Hollywood nonsense."

"Too bad, because I've only ever seen the movies."

I sniffed and lifted my nose in the air. "Plebeian."

I worried that I might have gone too far, for a moment, but Amy laughed, so I let myself grin.

"Seriously, though, most of that is stuff I've only read for class," she told me. "Although I'll admit to liking _Frankenstein_ more than I expected. In a weird way. I mean, if you count shouting at the book that that's not how biology works, anyway."

I gave her my best confused look. "It's not?"

She snorted. "No, Taylor, it is most _definitely_ not. I promise you that. You can trust me, I'm a doctor."

I blinked, surprised. "You are?"

"Um, well, honorary," she admitted. "I didn't, like, go to school for it or anything, but they gave me an honorary medical license so I could heal people. Makes it harder for people to sue me because I didn't make their boobs bigger or fix a mole they didn't like."

"Does it really?"

She shrugged.

"I don't actually know? Carol — um, my mom, I mean — is the one who handles all of the legal stuff. I know that I could get in trouble for practicing _without_ a license, but hell if I know what that means for parahuman healers. Better to have all your t's crossed, though, I guess."

"I guess." We rounded the last corner, and the bus stop was coming into sight. "So, what are your hobbies, then?"

Amy frowned.

"I don't know," she said. "I guess I _do_ read, a little. A lot of stuff by Edgar Allan Poe, although _The Raven_ is definitely my favorite."

"Once upon a midnight dreary," I recited, "while I pondered, weak and weary…"

It got me a little smile.

"Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore," she continued. "Yeah. _Quoth the raven, Nevermore_. Always gives me chills."

"A little dark, though."

"As opposed to how bright and sunny the hospital is? Always healing people, always someone who'll die without my help, always another person who wants this thing fixed or that thing removed or —"

She cut herself off.

"Sorry," I said quietly.

Amy sighed. "No," she told me, " _I'm_ sorry. I can't just shut my fucking mouth about cape stuff, can I?"

"If you…want to talk to me about it…"

She started to smile, then grimaced, like she was remembering something she didn't want to.

"Thanks, but…maybe another time."

We lapsed into another awkward silence, and a minute or two later, we were standing at the bus stop, beneath the sign that stretched above our heads. I turned to her and she turned to me.

"So."

"So," she repeated.

"Do you…want me to stay with you until your bus gets here?"

Amy gave her head a little shake. "No, don't worry about it. I'll be fine."

"You sure?"

"Yeah. The bus'll be here in just a minute or two. Besides, you're _running_ home. That takes a _little_ bit longer than riding the bus."

I hesitated. "If you're sure…"

She offered me a tired smile, then wagged her hand. "Go on. Shoo."

"All right. I'll…see you tomorrow?"

"Same time, same table."

"Okay." I waved to her shortly as I turned, and over my shoulder, I threw, "Bye!"

I took off at a more sedate pace than I would have normally taken, to keep my bag from bouncing all over the place and the books therein from stabbing into my lower back. At first, I thought about taking the straightest route I could back home, but even though that was fairly long, it wasn't anywhere near as long as the way I usually took in the mornings.

So, to stretch things out a little, I decided I would go around and swing through the Boardwalk, instead of going the quick and easy way. I took a right at the next corner and began the long, semi-circular path that would cut through the Boardwalk.

It would take be about an hour, at my current pace. Shorter, if I was running at my usual speed. Even shorter than that, if I sprinted all out, but not only was that bad for endurance, I had a feeling that it would probably, at this point, out me, if Amy's comments about my strength and speed were at all accurate.

Once I reached the Boardwalk, however, I had to slow to a jog, and then to a walk, because it was absolutely _crowded_. Seriously — there were more people milling about than I could _ever_ recall seeing in all my time in Brockton Bay, and I'd grown up, here.

What was with all these people?

I kept a steady pace as I walked along, looking about and trying to find some common thread to all of the men and women around me. A school trip of some kind, a vacation day at the local university, a particularly busy weekend — those things I could, with a few grains of salt, believe. It would still be strange, but not quite _as_ strange, so I'd be able to shrug and brush it off.

But there was no indication that any of that was really the case. Nobody here was apparently here as a group. They were not all wearing uniforms, they were not all roughly the same age, and they didn't walk together as one, gigantic mass. They were just…there, going about their afternoons like they came here every day. Or like the carnival was in town and today was the last day.

Weird. Kind of freaky, too. There was a _reason_ Brockton Bay wasn't exactly a tourist attraction. Hard to pull people in when the ABB and the Empire were cutting out sections of the city to fit into their little fiefdoms.

Well. _Used to be_. I hadn't heard about anything but some skirmishes between the unpowered thugs since the fiasco with Bakuda.

I kept going, walking a little more briskly — as briskly as the crowd would let me — so I could get out of there as soon as possible.

"You!" a voice suddenly shouted.

I came to a sudden stop, and one of the people behind me bumped into me roughly ("Watch where you're going!" he hissed, but I paid him no mind). I looked to the source of the shout, and there was a woman, dressed in robes, pointing directly at me. She sat behind a table in a small, open tent decorated with patterns of stars.

I blinked and gestured to myself.

"Yes, you!" the woman said, wagging her finger. "Come here, girl, and I'll tell your future!"

I snorted, turned, and started to walk away.

"Even if it's about Lisa?"

I froze, stunned, as my heart skipped a beat.

What?

I whirled about and crossed the distance in what felt like an instant, and when I reached her table, I leaned forward and demanded, "How do you know that name? Are you a cape?"

The woman — and now that I was up close, I could see the dark hair and the makeup that had been used to give her skin an olive tone, and if I had to place her features, I'd peg her as vaguely European — gave me a crooked smile.

"I would not be much of a fortune-teller if I couldn't tell even the simplest of things about my customers, now would I?"

I watched her face for any sign of deception or dishonesty, but all I saw were the cold eyes that gleamed beneath heavy lids. She gave nothing away, no hint or clue that would tell me if she was a stalker or a spy or had just gotten incredibly lucky with her guess. And if she _was_ some kind of Thinker cape, she was doing a very poor job of diverting attention away from her powers. She wasn't even wearing a mask.

Eventually, when I found nothing, I had to straighten up and frown. "What _about_ Lisa?"

The woman's smile turned predatory. She knew she had me.

"Come, come, sit," she said, gesturing to the chair across from hers. She had that put-upon, undefinable accent that seemed to belong only to the stereotypical fortune-teller. "Madame Simone will tell your fortune. As a show of good faith, it will even be free — as long, of course, as you tell your friends about Madame Simone."

I scowled and took the seat. Oh, I would _definitely_ be telling one of my friends about this — Lisa would probably be very interested to know what was happening, here.

"There are many ways to tell a person's fortune," said Madame Simone. She reached out and smoothed down the navy blue table cloth. "For you, I think, we will begin with the oldest method: tarot."

She produced from somewhere a deck of large cards, briefly showing me the bottom one — a jester — before she started shuffling them.

"The numbers will change for more specific readings, such as romance and career, but for this, I will be dealing ten cards. Each one illuminates a detail of your past, present, or future, and each is inextricably linked to the others."

The deck was placed off to the side with a solid _thump_.

"Hold the thought in your mind," she told me. "Hold it tightly. Think only of your friend, Lisa, and how she fits into your life, now."

I rolled my eyes, but did as she said, concentrating on the memory of our last meeting in Ahnenerbe. The awkwardness, the broken trust, and the unwillingness, despite that, to cast her aside.

Madame Simone drew the first card, and in the middle of the table, set it down. It depicted a skeletal figure, swathed in black armor, sitting astride a white horse.

"Death, inverted. There is a great change that you are resisting, and it is the source of all your current troubles."

She laid down another card, this one set sideways across the first. It showed a man hanging upside down by his ankle from a wooden beam.

"The Hanged Man, inverted. You are resisting the great change in your life because of uncertainty, indecision. You cannot make up your mind whether to accept or reject it, and until you do, you can't move forward."

The next card was set next to the other two and depicted seven golden orbs, each with a pentacle in the center.

"The Seven of Pentacles, also inverted. Your indecision stems from your fear of failure, because you are afraid of what will go wrong if you choose poorly. You are afraid of failure because…"

She laid the next card under the first two, and on its face was a man carrying seven swords.

"The Seven of Swords. You are afraid to make the wrong choice, because you chose wrongly in the past and it led to a terrible betrayal that scars you even today. A cherished friendship you thought unshakeable fell apart, and you are afraid to trust again."

The fifth card was one I recognized from my Arthurian studies, related to the depiction of the goddess of luck, Fortuna, in one of Gawain's stories.

"The Wheel of Fortune," said Madame Simone, and on the card she had set above the others, there was a great wheel with four men strapped to it. The one on the bottom suffered, the one heading towards the bottom would soon suffer, the one on the top prospered, and the one rising was finding good fortune. "In spite of your fears, you _want_ to succeed, you want to hope that it _will_ go well, and it is that desire that keeps you from rejecting the opportunity before you outright."

The next card showed seven gold cups and was set on the other side of the first two, opposite of the third card.

"The Seven of Cups. The time will come when you _must_ choose. It may not be for weeks or months, but there will inevitably be a day when you can no longer wallow in indecision."

Then, Madame Simone laid four more cards, face down, off to the side and flipped them one by one. The first was of a queen on a throne.

"The Empress, inverted. Your unwillingness to act, born of doubt and fear, only hinders you. You must be more certain and confident. Seize the initiative, rather than following another's."

Then, ten golden cups.

"The Ten of Cups. However, your friends and family are an important influence in your life. You should not abandon them in pursuit of your goals. Keep them close and confide in them."

Then, a king sitting upon his throne, a virtual mirror of the second to last card.

"The Emperor. Above all, what you seek is power and control — over yourself and over your fate. The only authority you want to answer to is your own, and you shun the yoke of others' power."

And lastly, six wooden staves, standing upright.

"The Six of Wands. Choose wisely in the future, and the goals you seek will be fulfilled."

For a moment, as I sat there, looking down at the spread of cards sprawled out on the table, I almost believed her. It would be a clever way, after all, for a precog to pretend she wasn't really a precog, by dressing herself up as a gypsy fortune-teller and passing her powers off as parlor tricks and "folk magic." It probably wouldn't be the strangest thing ever, either, if her powers used cards to predict the future, because apparently there were powers that were like that.

But when I actually gave it any thought, it was incredibly vague. Virtually any other person in the city could have sat down and gotten the exact same reading as me. There was no specificity that told me whether this was about Lisa or Amy or a person I hadn't even met, yet.

A great change in my life that I was resisting? That could be _anything_. Moving out of the city, going to a new school, my parents getting a divorce, my widower father finding another woman to love — _anything._ And who _didn't_ resist big changes like that? Who _wanted_ to move away from everyone they knew? Who _wanted_ their parents to separate? Who _wouldn't_ feel like their dad was trying to replace their mom if he fell in love with someone else? There were enough movies about that kind of thing, after all.

The rest of it wasn't any better. Who _didn't_ want to make the right choice? Who _wasn't_ afraid of making the wrong one? And _of course_ you'd have to choose eventually. For that matter, who _didn't_ want to feel in control of their life? Who _didn't_ feel like they needed to be more confident in their decisions? And you had pretty even odds of having a family and friends that at least _tried_ to support you.

None of it, when I really thought about it, necessarily had anything _at all_ to do with me.

Except the mention of Lisa. That was the _only_ thing that didn't line up. Except, when I gave that some consideration, too, it was easy enough to realize that she could have been there at Parian's puppet show with us or been nearby when we ate ice cream together, or she could even have heard us in passing at Ahnenerbe. It wasn't like we'd been on the lookout for anyone who could possibly overhear us while we were just hanging out.

Maybe she'd even just gotten lucky.

Or maybe… Heh. Maybe the reason why she was here as a gypsy and not at a cushy job with the Protectorate was because she _did_ have a power, but it was so useless that it could only give her the names of the three people closest to the person she pointed at. That would certainly make it easy to reel people in, wouldn't it? Just point at a random person, hook them by shouting the name of one of their closest friends or family members, then promise to tell their future. For a price. Special discount if you promised to tell your friends about her.

"Okay. We done?" I started to stand. "Because I've got to be getting home —"

Her hand shot out, lightning fast, and grabbed my wrist. "Come, come," she admonished, crooked grin in place, "tarot is not the only way of telling the future."

I rolled my eyes, again, but sat back down. I guessed there wasn't any harm in indulging her, but I wasn't about to sit there for an hour or two as she went through every trick in the book to convince me.

She turned my wrist so that my palm faced upwards, then began running her fingers along the lines and crevices with a soft, featherlight touch.

"Sometimes," said Madame Simone, "for the maximum effectiveness, you need to skip the cards and go for something more reliable. The palm is good for that — more direct, less bullshit."

She gazed down at my hand, humming and murmuring to herself.

"My, my," she said. "A life of great success and recognition. You will achieve much in your lifetime, my dear. Much indeed. But…these lines, I see. I see much stress in your life. Much stress. Stress and conflict. For every success, a failure. For every windfall, a tragedy. You have been cursed and blessed in equal measure."

She looked up at me, and that crooked grin became almost malevolent. "You will do great things, my dear. Great things indeed. But you will suffer to make them come true."

A shiver went down my spine. Unbidden, I remembered the prophecy spoken to Cúchulainn: you will find great glory, but die an early death.

I pushed it down and covered up my discomfort with a scowl. "Whatever. Are we done, now?"

Madame Simone cackled and let me go. I stood the moment she did and turned to leave.

"Remember to tell your friends, deary!" she called after me. "Madame Simone told your fortune!"

I ignored her and left, heading back towards home, again. The crowd had started to thin, so I wasn't held back as much as I was before.

What a bunch of nonsense. A waste of time. All of that hubbub about her knowing Lisa's name, and it was probably either blind luck or a nearly useless power.

Although…

'Sometimes, you need to skip the cards and go for something more reliable,' eh? I'd have to see whether or not that held true.

Maybe something good _had_ come of that whole thing, after all.

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

 **Lots of setup, this chapter. Loads and loads of it.**

 **Also, Amy and Taylor fluff. Hey, even the best of friendships have to start _somewhere_. Strangely enough, I keep worrying that they won't have anything to talk about, then I give them a starter topic and they take the page and the story away from me all on their own. It's definitely a good feeling.**

 **Any guesses on why Amy's favorite color is blue? Hint: if you're looking at** ** _A Finely Honed Blade_ for the answer, you'll be wrong.**

 **I am not a fortune-teller, so if I screwed up the tarot and the palmistry, I lay the blame on that. I did as much research as I could in a week's time, so much so that it took away from my writing time, and even then, I felt out of my depth and it seemed less compelling and more oddly fit than I wanted it to be. I did my best with the resources I had.**

 **That power Taylor theorizes Madame Simone has, though. That felt like the most Wildbow-esque power I could ever dream up.**

 **As always, read, review, and enjoy.**

 **And for early access to chapters and bonus content:**

 **p a treon . com (slash) James_D_Fawkes**


	37. Sunder 5-3

**Sunder 5.3**

I woke up Tuesday morning excited for school for the first time in a long time.

It was a strange feeling to wake up, open my eyes, and look forward to the day ahead. For so long, I'd just been getting by, surviving, one day at a time, and then, after the Locker, I was waiting for the school day to end so I could go train my martial arts or waiting for the weekend to come so I could experiment with my powers. To actually _want_ to go to school was…it was novel. New.

Refreshing, really.

And still very surreal.

A school where there were no bullies to torment me, no Emma, Sophia, or Madison, or their hangers-on, where I didn't have to worry about being cornered in the halls, belittled at every available moment, where my assignments wouldn't be broken or stolen or ruined in some way, where I didn't have to hide in the _bathroom_ just to get some reprieve and eat my lunch…

It was everything I'd ever hoped Arcadia would be.

So far, at least. This would still only be my second day there; it was entirely possible that there was a clique of girls who would single me out, and while this hypothetical group could never be as bad as the Trio, that didn't make it something I wanted to deal with.

On the other hand, I wasn't without friends, this time. I had Amy there with me, I thought I could say. We'd run into a few stumbling points, a few roadblocks, but we'd really hit it off, and…

Well, if I had to put it simply, I would say I was cautiously optimistic.

I hoped to whatever god might be listening that my paranoia would turn out to be just that, but I'd spent almost two years learning that it was well-founded, and a single good day wasn't enough to make me throw away every instinct that had been ingrained — painfully — into my mind. How did that saying go? Hope for the best, prepare for the worst? Yeah.

In the meantime, I was going to try and enjoy the good times for all they were worth.

When my alarm rang, I rolled over and slapped it to turn it off.

With a low groan — muffled by my pillow — I pulled myself up and climbed out of bed. My mouth tasted a bit funny, but that was nothing that couldn't be cured with a glass of water or a good breakfast.

I slipped into a pair of sweats, taking a short moment to admire the tone and definition in my legs that I had spent the last three months earning, then made my way down the hall — making sure the grab my shoes along the way.

Dad was already in the kitchen and cooking breakfast, dressed in his usual bathrobe, by the time I made it there. He looked over at me as I came in, a cup of coffee in one hand and a spatula in the other, and gave me a tired smile.

I _really_ needed to get around to enchanting his bed.

"Morning," he said with exhausted cheer.

"Morning," I replied.

"I made yours, first," he told me, gesturing to the table. At my usual seat sat a plate of scrambled eggs and toast, still steaming. A glass of orange juice had been placed above it.

"Thanks, Dad," I said gratefully.

Dad just smiled, and I sat down to dig in. It was as delicious as it looked, for all that it was simple and easy to make.

"So, I meant to ask you last night," he began conversationally, "but how was your first day at Arcadia?"

I swallowed a mouthful of egg. "Good."

"Good?" he repeated.

"Good. I mean, well, it was only my first day," I hedged. "But the campus is nice, my classmates seemed nice, the teachers were…helpful…"

 _Unlike at Winslow_ , I didn't say, but it didn't need to be said. Not after it had all come out in the wake of Sophia's death. Not after Dad had spent the better part of a week shouting Blackwell up and down her office over the miscarriage of my situation.

"I even made a friend, I think."

"You did?" Dad asked, sounding both delighted and surprised.

I nodded into my orange juice.

"Amy," I told him. "We met by chance a couple of weeks ago, but we only really started actually talking yesterday."

I'd never told Dad about the incident at the bank, and I had no idea how I'd gotten away with it. As a minor, weren't they supposed to have my father around if they took any official statements from me? But the PRT officer had just asked me about the Undersiders' break-in, thanked me for my time, and left.

Maybe he'd thought I was actually an adult? It wouldn't have been the first time my height had apparently made me seem older than I was.

"What about that other girl you were telling me about?" Dad asked. "Lisa, was it?"

"Lisa got her GED, so she doesn't go to school," I explained. "And, um, last week was kind of hectic, so…"

"Oh."

"I'm meeting up with her this afternoon, after school."

It would be the first time I'd seen her since Bakuda. Not the first time we'd talked since then, but the first time we'd be face to face.

Dad was smiling as he brought his breakfast over to the table and sat down. "Does that mean you'll be out later than usual?"

"Um, probably."

"Home in time for dinner?"

"Maybe?" I hedged uncertainly. I usually was — for a certain value of "usually," since I'd only had the one training session with her — but at the time, I hadn't had classes to go to, first. "I mean, probably? I'll… Actually, I'll try to be. Promise."

"I'll have dinner ready for you." He perked up suddenly. "Oh, that's a great idea! Why don't you invite Lisa over to dinner, tonight? I can meet one of your new friends. I'll even make you…" He faltered for a second, then ploughed on. "I'll make your mother's lasagna."

For a few seconds, I stopped and looked up at him.

He hadn't made lasagna in nearly three years. Not since Mom died. It was the dish she was most famous for in our house — _had been_ most famous for. He'd tried, once, after the funeral, to cheer us up, if I had to guess, but all it had done was make us miss her more and neither of us had been able to eat more than a few bites before losing our appetites.

"I'd…I'd like that," I said. "Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I'll ask Lisa if she wants to have dinner with us, tonight."

Dad smiled, a fragile little thing that looked like it might break if I reached out and touched it. "I'll get the stuff for lasagna today after work, then, and I'll see you around six-thirty?"

"Yeah. Six-thirty." I hesitated. "Um, Lisa might have some other stuff going on, tonight, but I'll let her know she's invited."

"Oh." The smile wavered a little. "Then I'll just have to make it again when she _does_ come over. I'll buy enough stuff to make it twice."

"Um, sure. That sounds great. Thanks, Dad."

"Of course, Sweetheart."

I went back to my food, and the rest of breakfast was eaten in relative silence. When I was done, I got up and washed my plate and glass, then made my way towards the side door that led out into our yard.

Dad stopped me on the way.

"Got your pepper spray?" he asked over his shoulder.

"Yeah."

"Alright. Be safe, Taylor."

"Always, Dad."

I left out the side door, and once it was closed behind me, I took off.

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

The rest of my day went basically the same way the day before had. No Trio, no bullying, and no pranks. No one was putting glue on my chair or dumping orange juice all over me or tripping me in the hallways. No one was stealing my homework. No one was cornering me after class and letting loose a stream of vitriol. No one went out of their way to make my life miserable.

Instead, my day was entirely without incident. I wasn't exactly making tons of friends, but I wasn't the pariah I'd been at Winslow, either. I was fine with just Amy, for now.

It was still kind of surreal, though. I kept looking out for people making a beeline towards me in the halls, or people coming back from sharpening their pencil with shavings to dump in my hair, or groups of girls who were heading in my general direction. It was almost disappointing when nothing happened at all, when none of those things occurred and no one bothered me. A relief, more than that, but still kind of disappointing.

 _Man_ , was that going to take some getting used to. In a good way, but still.

Also like yesterday, Amy was waiting outside on the front steps, again, playing with the hem of her shirt, this time. She looked over at me as I came out the front doors and jerked her head towards the road.

"Ready to go?"

"Sure," I replied. "Taking the bus, again?"

"For the foreseeable future," Amy said dryly. She started walking, and I fell into step beside her. "As long as Vicky's taking Dean's car home, I'm slumming it with public transportation."

I smiled a little. "Makes sense. Oh, I'm meeting up with Lisa, later, though."

"Lisa?" she asked, then scowled a moment later. "Oh. Right. Tattletale. You're still…" She trailed off and shook her head. "You know what? Fuck it. I'm gonna give her the same courtesy. I don't know her as Tattletale, I'm not gonna treat her as Tattletale. As far as I'm concerned, they're two different people. Just don't ask me to like her or be her friend, okay?"

"O…kay," I replied hesitantly, because how else was I supposed to respond to that?

It wasn't like I could blame her, either. Lisa hadn't exactly made a really good first impression on Amy, and despite her situation, she _was_ still nominally a villain. Amy was a hero who used her powers selflessly to heal people, so it wasn't like it was fair to expect them to get along.

But talking about Lisa was probably a guaranteed path to an argument, so I cast around for something else, anything else, to change the subject to. The only thing I could think of was how we'd met.

"So, um, you never did tell me. What you were doing at the bank, two weeks ago, I mean."

Amy looked over at me. "I didn't?"

"No."

"Well, you never really explained exactly what _you_ were doing there, either," she commented wryly.

I flushed. "Oh, um. Sorry. If it's not something you want to talk about —"

"No, it's fine," said Amy. "I don't really know how you could have explained that whole mess to me, anyway. And it's not like it's some big, embarrassing secret or something."

"Oh."

"I was withdrawing some cash for a double date I was supposed to go on with Vicky and her boyfriend, that night," she explained. "Ugh. A _blind_ double date, too."

That…I didn't see how that would be comfortable. Hell, I didn't understand the point of a blind date. Didn't you kind of need mutual interest to start dating in the first place?

"A blind date?"

Imagine going on a blind date, only to find out your date was someone like _Greg Veder_. I mean, Greg was nice enough, but he wasn't exactly the kind of guy girls went gaga over.

"Vicky's been doing that for _ages_ ," complained Amy. "Since I don't have a boyfriend and I haven't exactly gone looking, she takes it on herself to set me up with guys she thinks I'll like and drags us on double dates with her and Dean."

"You didn't like any of them?" I asked.

Amy shrugged. "I just wasn't really interested in them. Some of them were nice enough, sure, but that didn't mean I wanted to date them."

"Why not?

"Why not?"

"Why weren't you interested, I mean," I clarified.

"I just wasn't," she told me simply.

I…guessed I could understand? Well, it was different for me, because Winslow wasn't exactly the best environment for romantic relationships. For one, half of the kids were related to one of the gangs in some way, shape, or form, and I wasn't interested in that. For another, it was hard to let my guard down enough to let someone in when it was entirely possible he could be in on one of the Trio's pranks. Thirdly, it was hard to focus on romance when most of my energy was on just making it through the day.

If I'd been at Arcadia the entire time, though, where I didn't have to worry about any of that, I couldn't see myself having never at least had a _crush_. Hell, maybe I would even have managed to find a guy who liked me back.

"I guess it's a bit easier for your heroes, huh?" she asked. "Falling in love at first sight, marrying their one true love, living happily ever after —"

I couldn't help the laugh that slipped out.

"What? What did I say?"

"You don't know much of anything about the old myths and legends, do you?" I said between chuckles.

Amy scowled. "Enlighten me then, oh wise one."

"N-no, sorry, just — heh — that happily ever after stuff is just Disney crap, you know? Like Heracles? He _did_ marry Megara, Disney got _that_ right, and there _were_ twelve labors he had to accomplish. But, like, Hera hated him and drove him insane, and in most versions, he killed his wife and kids like that."

"Whoa," said Amy. "Really?"

I nodded. "Yeah. Jason, of course, is a total asshole who ditched the wife the gods _Mastered_ into loving him so that he could go be prince of some kingdom. The Trojan War started because basically the _same thing_ happened, just Helen happened to already have been married beforehand. Cúchulainn was sleeping with his teacher, his teacher's _daughter_ , and his teacher's _sister_ , all at the same time, while he was _supposed_ to be proving himself worthy to marry the girl of his dreams."

"Seriously?" she asked incredulously.

"Oh, don't even get me _started_ on what those famous heroes got up to while they were away from their wives and girlfriends!" I said. "The Irish slept with basically _everyone_ , including their foster brothers. Those Greek heroes? They were 'teaching' their apprentices all the aspects of being a man — _all_ of them."

Amy looked at me dubiously. "Wait, when you say 'all,' do you mean —"

" _All_ of them, Amy," I repeated. "Yes, even _that_. Then you've got Guinevere cheating with Lancelot, Gawain, who never seemed to be with the same girl _twice_ , Tristain, _again_ having an affair with a married woman…"

"Wow," she said. "I guess…being gay was a much more acceptable thing, back then. The Greeks and the Irish didn't seem to have any trouble with it, did they?"

"I guess?"

"And you probably have a much more realistic view of romance, huh?" she went on. "Seeing as you know better than most all the ways it can go right and all the ways it can go wrong."

"I suppose I do," I replied. "For all the good it's done me."

A long moment passed in silence. Neither of us said anything for several minutes.

"So," Amy said at length, "what about you, then?"

I gave her a sidelong glance.

"Me?"

"Yeah, you. Any boyfriends? Anyone you're interested in? Anyone you've used that vast knowledge of romance to catch the eye of?"

I flushed a little.

"No."

"No one? No one at all?"

"No, no one."

I saw Amy look at me shrewdly out of the corner of my eye.

"Girls, then?"

I snorted. "There're only two girls I'm on even marginally good terms with, and you're one of them. Not very conducive to having a relationship of any kind, romantic or otherwise."

I knew who I could thank for that.

"To tell you the truth, I haven't even really _thought_ about romance. It's just, well, there wasn't really a…a _chance_ for that kind of thing," I went on. "At Winslow, I mean."

"Oh." Amy snorted, too. "Yeah, I can imagine. Toss a stone, hit a member of E88 or ABB, right? And if not one of _them_ , then one of the Merchants' customers, right?"

"Well, yeah, _that_ , and, um…" I didn't want to get into the Trio and their bullying, right now. "Well, I mean, it just wasn't something I was focused on, really. And, well, I'm not exactly…a supermodel or something."

I wasn't as pretty as someone like Emma, in other words. And I wasn't cutesy, like Madison. I was just…me. Plain, ordinary, unremarkable. Too wide mouth, too big eyes. Not the kind of girl guys dreamed about dating or taking to their beds.

Although… It wasn't like all of my heroes were _virgins_ , so…

Heh. I had a power that put me up there with some of the best heroes in the country, maybe even the world, and I was thinking about using it to find out what sex was like. What a responsible use of my powers.

For a long moment, Amy looked hard at me, frowning.

"No," she said after a while. "No, you're not. But most girls aren't, you know?"

"Well, yeah, but…"

"No, seriously," she said. "Most girls look pretty normal, once you take the makeup off. Hell, most _supermodels_ aren't that phenomenal without a little eyeliner and mascara and blush and stuff to highlight the things they think look best about their face. Take it from someone who's had to sit in a makeup chair a couple of times for a magazine spread, makeup? It's usually, like, sixty or seventy percent of a girl's looks."

I pursed my lips, but I wasn't sure I believed it. Emma… I remembered _always_ thinking Emma was really pretty, compared to me. That was why she got amateur modeling jobs and I didn't.

Amy gave me another long, hard look.

"Didn't your mom ever —"

She stopped herself as she realized what she was about to say, but the damage was already done.

"Mom died almost three years ago," I said quietly. "So no. She didn't. The extent of my knowledge of cosmetics is the messing around I did with a…an ex-friend of mine as a kid."

And playing dress-up with Emma wasn't anywhere near the same as actually knowing what to do with makeup. Plus, well, when it would wind up ruined by the end of the day, there wasn't much point to it, was there?

"Sorry," Amy apologized just as quietly.

I blew out an explosive sigh through my lips. "Don't worry about it."

We fell into silence and didn't talk the rest of the way. When we came upon the bus stop, there was already someone there — a brunette girl in a hoodie with headphones plugged into her ears and a floppy, short-billed green hat sitting on her head, messing around with her phone. She glanced up at us as we walked up to her, but went back to her phone without comment.

"So," I said, turning to Amy.

"So," she repeated, turning to me.

"See you tomorrow?"

"Um, yeah. See you tomorrow."

She hesitated, and I waited for her to say something, but she just shook her head and fidgeted with her fingers.

"Fuck, I'm terrible at this," she breathed.

 _At least you weren't tormented for two years by the girl you used to call your best friend_ , but I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from saying it. Landmines, I reminded myself. Making friends without the help of a Thinker power meant sometimes stepping on landmines.

"I didn't exactly make it easier for you," I told her.

"No, but…" She trailed off. "Look, I meant what I said, okay? You're not ugly."

I smiled a little, but it didn't quite reach my eyes. "Thanks, Amy. I'll see you tomorrow."

She smiled, too. But it was equally half-hearted. "Same time, same table."

I turned and left, heading back towards the pier where I had first shown Lisa Nimue's castle. My feet carried me at a slow and steady pace without, it seemed, any input from me. The streets were mostly empty, except for the occasional student walking home, although they got emptier the closer I got to the Docks and Old Town.

It was a bit of a rough start, but one of these days, Amy and I would make this friendship thing work. I had to believe that. I had to have hope it was true, that between me being socially stunted from Emma and Amy never connecting with anyone besides her sister, we could somehow overcome our problems and our fumbling and actually be friends.

The alternative was to decide it wouldn't work out and spend the rest high school alone, but for the awkward struggle with Lisa, who I _wanted_ to forgive but couldn't bring myself to. That way lied my path at Winslow — doing nothing but getting through the day until I graduated, only without the bullying to make it worse. I didn't want to go back to that, not ever again, not after I'd had a taste at what I'd been missing for two years.

I was _going_ to make it work. I wasn't going to let a few landmines get in my way.

Halfway to the pier, I stopped as something niggled at the edge of my senses. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end, and I felt, suddenly, as though I was being watched.

I turned and looked around, scanning the street for signs of another person, but I was alone. There was no one else there besides me, and no hasty footsteps to give away someone who had rushed into an alleyway to hide.

I turned back around and continued on. A few minutes later, however, the feeling of being watched tingled at the base of my head, again, and when I turned around to look a second time, there still wasn't anyone there. My hand traveled up absentmindedly to the pendant under my hoodie, the one that would protect me from bullets, as though to reassure myself it was still there.

I was tempted to pull out a hero and check using one of their clairvoyance type skills, but that was paranoid, and it was broad daylight, too. If someone _was_ following me, I'd be outing myself right in front of them.

Again, I turned back around and kept going.

The feeling niggled at me another three times on my way to the pier, and each time I turned to look, it was to find no one there and no sign that anyone had even _been_ there. The one time there'd been a person, it was a guy walking his dog in an entirely different direction.

Lisa was already there when I arrived, fiddling with her phone, but she looked up and offered me a knowing grin as I came closer.

"Enjoy your walk with Pan-pan?"

"Lisa," I said without preamble, "am I being followed?"

She stopped, smile dropping, then surreptitiously glanced around, then behind me, before she gave a slight shake of her head.

"Nothing, Chief. You think you have a stalker?"

I pursed my lips and glanced back over my shoulder. There still wasn't anyone there.

"No. Yes. Maybe." I made a frustrated noise in the back of my throat. "Nothing concrete, I just felt like I was being watched for most of the way here."

Lisa hummed. "You haven't picked up any sixth sense type skills, have you?"

"No," I told her. "Although it's been something on my checklist for a while, I've just never sat down to do anything with it."

"Then it's _probably_ nothing," she said. " _Probably_. It might be Coil, because this kind of slipperiness is his schtick. With his power, though, you'll never know unless he screws up, _big time_ , or decides it's time to take you out."

I frowned. "You never did tell me what his power is, or even that you knew what it was."

Lisa frowned, then glanced around again. She leaned forward, close enough that only I could hear her. "You and I have the only ways into the castle, right?"

"Yes," I replied.

"And no one else can get in without our…you-know-whats?"

"Of course," I said a little defensively.

"Then, let's get out of the spotlight, first, yeah?" she suggested.

I frowned and looked around, too, but there was no one. No one I could see, at least. "All right."

I stepped past her and out onto the pier. A thought summoned the bodysuit beneath my clothes, swapping out my underwear. A moment of concentration, pushing power through the other necklace, and I incanted, "Let there be a pathway through the ocean."

A pattern of lines, symbols, and circles drew itself on the surface of the water, then turned into a disk. I stepped forward and through —

— and landed with a jolt inside my castle. Lisa appeared behind me a moment later.

"So," I said, turning to her, "Coil's power?"

"Some kind of timeline-based power," she answered immediately. "Or, well, precognition of a sort that's functionally identical. I'm leaning more towards precognition, now, since your power apparently messes with his. He showed it to me, once, asked me whether he was making new timelines or just simulating them. Like I said, I'm leaning more towards 'simulation,' now."

"So…what? He can simulate out to the end of the universe?"

Because that sounded…pretty powerful, actually.

Lisa gave a helpless shrug. "No idea how far out he can go or how many timelines he can make at once. But the way powers tends to work, I think he's probably a pretty short term precog, like on the scale of hours or days, and he can probably only have a few timelines open at once. In fact, I'd say it's more likely to be a low number, more like two or three. If he could have an infinite number of timelines going… Fuck, I don't even want to _imagine_ how incredibly powerful he'd be."

Neither did I. How could you face someone who basically had an infinite number of tries and could be almost anywhere at any time?

She shook her head. "Anyway," she said, "point is, this _might_ be Coil. But there's basically no way to be sure. The only way to counter him spying is to be somewhere where he can't see you. I'd say this counts."

She gestured out to the castle.

"And what can I do _outside_ the castle?"

Lisa gave me another shrug. "Not much, really. Your house is well-defended, right?"

I shifted. "Yeah."

"Right, yeah, the Shadow Stalker thing," she said. "Anyway. Precogs aren't usually built for direct confrontation. That's why he hides behind paid mercenaries and has the Undersiders to do his bidding. Even if he knows _where_ you are, while you're in your house or here, he can't come after you. As long as you're wearing that amulet, he'd have to get _so_ overt that there's no way he could hide his hand in it. And he _hates_ tipping his hand before he's ready."

I scowled. "So, what?" I asked. "Grin and bear with it?"

"Basically?" Lisa said. "Your only other real option is to take the fight directly to him, and I don't think we're ready to try that, yet."

That didn't do anything to improve my mood. So, if it _was_ Coil, I had to let him keep spying on me, or else go and get rid of him immediately and hope I caught the real thing in the right timeline? Those were _fucking terrible_ choices. Not even really choices at all.

I grunted. Great. So while I waited for Lisa to figure out how we were going to beat him at his own game, I had to settle for letting a voyeur watch me twenty-four-seven, following me to and from school and watching me as I hung out with my friends. That was just _fantastic_.

"Fine," I said grouchily. "Just… _Fine_. If that's how it is, then let's just…move on and do what we came here to do today."

I dropped my bag just inside the gate entrance, then started to walk out into the courtyard proper. Lisa followed behind me, but didn't seem all that eager.

"I know this is important," she muttered. "I know it. But I am _so_ not looking forward to this. My muscles are going to _kill me,_ tomorrow."

When we had enough space to move around in, I turned back to her and said, "All right, let's start things off with a spar."

I lifted my arms up into a boxing stance. Across from me, Lisa groaned quietly, but nonetheless, raised her arms up, too. She was doing her best to mimic me.

I spared a thought to wish Amy had come along, too, then shut out all of the unimportant things and focused entirely on Lisa.

No distractions. At this moment, all that existed was us. Everything else would just get in the way.

I kicked the ground to throw myself forward, and our spar began.

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

 **As for actual story stuff, not _too_ too much happens, here. Lots of bonding with Amy. Some bonding with Danny (he's trying, folks, give him that). We're marching towards the plot of this arc, and although we're going somewhat slowly, it'll accelerate fairly quickly when it does.**

 **As always, read, review, and enjoy.**

 **And for early access to chapters and bonus content:**

 **p a treon . com (slash) James_D_Fawkes**


	38. Sunder 5-4

**Sunder 5.4**

The rest of the week passed much in the same way as Monday and Tuesday, and before I knew it, it was Friday, again.

I still hadn't quite gotten used to the oddity of exactly how normal and how much more comfortable Arcadia was. I thought it would probably take me about a month to really settle into it, because it was _that_ drastic a difference to Winslow. Even after the first week, I was still expecting Emma and the rest of her group to pop in and smugly tell me that _they_ could get into Arcadia if _I_ could, or for Sophia to magically appear (even though she was dead) and bump me into the lockers, or even to find my seat covered in juice or glue.

It wasn't rational. I knew it wasn't. In my head, I was perfectly aware that I was finally rid of my tormentors and none of them were at Arcadia with me. I knew I would never be seeing Sophia again, and I knew that Emma had never had the grades to make it into Arcadia in the first place, so she certainly wouldn't be getting in, now. I knew that Madison and any of the hangers-on would think _twice_ about harassing me the minute they realized I was friends with _Amy_ , and I knew that if they tried _anyway_ , I was done cowering and letting them walk all over me.

But the niggling doubts still remained. That Arcadia, for all it looked nicer, wasn't any different from Winslow. That some girl and her posse would get it into their heads to elevate themselves by picking on me and trying to grind me under their heels. That in transferring schools, all I had done was trade one hell for another.

I tried not to listen to those thoughts, but they were persistent. They'd been born from experience, from the paranoia I'd had to develop to make it through the past year and a half. They were products of instincts that I'd have to learn to forget, and they wouldn't disappear just because I wished really hard that they would.

Lunch with Amy helped. It was easier to forget about my fears and my worries when I could just spend an hour focusing on nothing but talking with her and learning about her. Her likes, her dislikes, her hobbies.

For instance, she smoked. Less to worry about when you could modify bacteria in the air to harmlessly process the chemicals and carcinogens with every drag on your cigarette, she'd told me wryly. She got the rush of nicotine and didn't have to concern herself with side effects or long term problems. All the upsides, none of the drawbacks.

(I'd thought, at the time, that there were other, healthier ways to relieve stress, like running or going to the gym, but apparently, it wasn't all that uncommon for nurses to catch a smoke break during lunch, either. It seemed that the healthcare profession was a very stressful field to be in.)

She also liked the color blue, but didn't think she looked good in it, which explained why I only ever saw her in dark colors outside of her costume, like black and shades of grey, with red for a little vibrancy. The only clothes she owned that were blue were her jeans, and those, she asserted, didn't count.

I wondered, when she told me that, what she'd think of Nimue's gown and robes. Nothing but shades of blue, there. Maybe… Probably envious. Nimue had a lot to be envious of, after all, and I couldn't help but imagine that she could wear puke green and _still_ pull it off. It would probably take conscious effort for her to actually look at all unattractive, and even then, her unnatural beauty might make the attempt useless.

Just… Fairies. Blessings from goddesses. Completely unfair to the rest of us regular women.

Of course, as much as I was learning about Amy, it was also apparent that there was still a lot of stuff I _didn't_ know.

"Wait," I said. "Hold on. Rewind. Run that by me again? You know _the Mayor_?"

Like the fact that she rubbed elbows with some pretty rich and important people.

Amy blinked at me and gave me a quick nod as she ate another french fry.

"New Wave gets invited to a lot of that stuff, as a courtesy, I guess," she explained. "Or maybe they just like being able to say they're on a first name basis with a local team of superheroes, I dunno. Once we got our powers, Vicky and I started getting dragged along, too. And, well, once she started dating Dean," she added. "Dean's family is pretty high society. So even before she got her powers, Vicky was going as his plus one."

That…made a lot of sense, now that I thought about it. Capes _were_ basically local celebrities, and they were treated a lot like ones, too. There were some pretty crazy idiots who put themselves in a lot of danger to film or take snapshots of cape fights to post on PHO, which wasn't all that different from the way a lot of famous actors were treated by the paparazzi. A lot more dangerous, yes, but not all that different.

I'd even heard a couple of vague things about teams with corporate sponsorships, who were technically independent heroes that received financial backing from Gatorade or Nike or whoever. Obviously, they weren't as famous as the _Protectorate_ 's best and brightest, like the Triumvirate, but they _did_ exist, supposedly.

"Huh," I muttered. "So, this fundraiser thing…"

"Yeah," Amy said, nodding again. "I heard about it from Vicky, who got told about it by her boyfriend, Dean, and Dean's family was one of the first invited because of their money. Ca — um, my mom got _our_ invites last weekend, but Vicky will at least nominally be going as Dean's plus one." She rolled her eyes. "They'll have a big fight if he doesn't ask her, so there's no way he won't."

She took a sip of her chocolate milk, then gestured at me with the straw. " _You_ probably would've gotten an invited, too."

I blinked, nonplussed. " _Me_?"

"Uh, well, your _other half_ ," she corrected. "You _are_ the one who captured her, after all. Bakuda, I mean. The only reason they haven't is because they have no idea how to contact you and they don't want to lose face by admitting it publicly."

"Oh." I fidgeted a little. "I didn't think… Well, I mean, I guess? But it's not like I…"

I wasn't sure how to put it. It wasn't like I'd done it for the gratitude I'd get doing it. In fact, a lot of it was selfish — out of a desire to protect myself and my dad — rather than something I'd done solely because it was the right thing to do. I… Well, it _was_ , and that _had_ been a part of it, because I was a hero and that was the sort of thing heroes did, but the big thing had been that she'd threatened me and Dad.

"Taylor," Amy said slowly, "eighty-two people died in the Medhall bombing alone, and that's just the bodies they've managed to dig out, so far. At least two-hundred more were injured. Bakuda was threatening to do a whole lot _worse_ , if she wasn't stopped. She's bound for the _Birdcage_. Full stop. Do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars. The PRT _itself_ announced that you did all of the hard work and they just brought the mop. Of _course_ they want to invite you."

When she put it that way…

It still felt…really _weird_ , though. Good, but really weird. How I'd gone from a no name high school girl to the most famous new cape in Brockton Bay. How I'd gone from just a face in the crowd to in the spotlight in less than a week. How apparently the rich and powerful wanted to _meet me_ , if only to get the chance to shake my hand.

It was… It would take some getting used to. Lots of it.

"Well, I mean… I guess?"

 _Lots of it_.

Amy sighed, shook her head, and smiled wryly. "This won't really help at all, but you get used to it. Eventually. Then, you get tired of it. My advice? Learn to smile like you mean it and practice saying 'thank you' in the mirror until it sounds convincing."

…No, Amy, that wasn't really comforting, _at all_.

I sighed, too, and let my head fall into my hands.

"I don't even…"

"I could…take you as my plus one," Amy offered haltingly. "So you can…see what it's like without being in the spotlight."

I pursed my lips. I wasn't sure that option was much better, because undoubtedly, as Panacea's "date," I'd probably get lots of questions, like, "How did you two meet?" or, "Are you here as friends, then?" or even, "Does that mean you're a cape, too?" That would…be rather uncomfortable, to say the least. And even _if_ I went with her…

"I'm not even sure what I'd wear to something like that," I admitted. "It's not like I could show up in jeans and a hoodie, and the only vaguely nice thing I own is the clothes I wore three years ago to my mom's…"

To her funeral. The only formal wear I owned was the modest black dress I'd worn to Mom's funeral. That wasn't an option, not only because it was funeral wear and it would remind me of burying Mom, the worst day of my life, but also because I'd grown a couple of inches since then — up _and_ out. There was no way it would fit.

Amy grimaced. "I could…take you shopping, I guess."

She didn't seem to relish the idea.

I shook my head.

"With what money?" I asked sourly. "Half the reason I was going to Winslow in the first place is because things have been a bit rough, financially, since the shipping industry collapsed. And don't tell me _you're_ going to pay for it," I added when I saw the look on her face. She scowled. "You've been pretty great, Amy, but there's no way I could ask you to spend a couple hundred dollars on buying me a nice dress."

I could maybe ask _Lisa_. But that felt too much like taking advantage of her, and she'd know better than to think she could _buy_ my trust back.

"I'm not good at that stuff, so I'd have to bring Vicky, anyway," Amy muttered. She bit viciously into another french fry.

Right. And that likely wouldn't end well, considering the last time she and I had so much as looked at each other, she'd shattered most of the bones in my arm.

So, again, could _maybe_ ask Lisa, although I didn't really want to.

 _Or_ …

"I could…make my own, I guess," I suggested as the idea came to me.

Medea was a woman of many talents. And if not her, Nimue would work just as well. If neither of _them_ worked… Well, there had to be a mythological seamstress in _some_ legend, right?

Amy blinked at me incredulously. "You can _do_ that?"

"Well… Yeah."

I reached into my hoodie and pulled up my protective amulet, showing it to her. It was almost funny, watching her eyebrows climb up towards her hairline.

"You _made_ that?"

"Yeah," I answered. "Out of some scrap metal. Some rusty rebar. Since I can just _buy_ the fabric from a shop, making a dress would be even easier."

"What's this about making dresses, now?"

I nearly jumped out of my seat — actually did lift an inch or so — and twisted around to see a red-haired boy, grinning broadly, as he walked around me and the table to grab a chair next to Amy.

"Thinking of making a change in profession, Amy?" the boy asked as he sat down, uninvited. He had the bluest of eyes, and they glittered with mirth. "Becoming a seamstress? I never knew you were into knitting!"

"Dennis," said Amy with something like a groan. "We were talking about the fundraiser."

"Oh." Dennis scrunched up his face and stuck out his tongue. " _That_ thing."

"You…know about it?" I asked.

"He's one of Dean's… _friends_ ," Amy explained, giving Dennis a strange, inscrutable look. "What are you doing here, Dennis?"

"I come to welcome yon weary traveler to our humble school," said Dennis, grinning at me. "And the newest Ward, right?"

" _What_?"

Amy just rolled her eyes. "Whenever we get a new student, there's a whole hubbub about whether or not it's a new Ward transferring in. Of course, school policy is generally that we're not supposed to _ask_."

She shot him an accusatory glare.

Oh. Okay. That made a bit more sense.

Dennis held up his hands. "Hey, if I seriously thought she was, I wouldn't have said anything."

"Everyone…really thinks I'm a new Ward?" I asked.

That was still a little alarming, but less… _How the hell does everyone seem to know I'm a cape?_ than the alternative.

Amy snorted. "It's Arcadia," she said. "That's the default assumption."

"No one's asked you, yet?" asked Dennis.

"No," I said, because they hadn't. No one had yet come up to me, trying to figure out if I was a new Ward transferring to Arcadia. In fact, no one had really come up to me yet, at all, aside from Amy.

"Well, that makes _some_ sense," he said. "You've got this…"

He screwed up his face in an exaggerated scowl, brow furrowed deep, lips drawn out into a broad, thin line, and eyes crossed, that only served to make him look constipated.

"— thing going on, you know? Total RBF."

"Dennis!"

What the hell?

"RBF?"

"Resting bitch face," he explained.

I made a…complicated expression, not entirely sure how I was supposed to react to that. Should I be angry? Flattered? Some mixture of both? Was it something that was supposed to be impressive or bad or…what?

"There!" he said, pointing at me with his fork. "Just like that! Man, you're good at this. That look that just screams, 'What rock did you even crawl out from under?' Oh, man, a look like that could _crush_ a man!"

"Dennis," said Amy, exasperated. She sighed and turned back to me. "Don't pay this idiot too much mind. He thinks he's a comedian."

Dennis slapped one hand to his chest, over his heart, and gave an exaggerated, theatrical gasp. "Amy! How could you? I'm the funny man, I tell you! The funny man! Of _course_ I'm a comedian!"

Amy just rolled her eyes, again.

"How do you two know each other, exactly?" I asked.

They shared a look.

"Dean," they told me in stereo.

"I know Dean, Dean's dating Vicky," Dennis explained, "and Amy is Vicky's Siamese twin."

"Am not!" Amy snapped irritably.

"And Amy usually sits with Vicky during lunch," Dennis went on as though she hadn't said anything. "'S part of why I came over. We haven't seen hide nor hair of Amy all week."

Amy grimaced. "Vicky and I are…having a bit of a fight, right now."

He blinked. "Over what? You two have been _inseparable_ since the moment we met!"

She glanced at me, and that was all I needed to know that it was about the bank and what had happened there. They were fighting because of _me_.

I felt a little bad about that. More on Amy's behalf than Vicky's, but still.

"It's none of your business," Amy told him firmly.

Dennis held up his arms.

"Okay, okay, I surrender!"

Then, he grinned. "As my terms for surrender, I request that, if I must be executed, it's death by snu-snu."

Amy rolled her eyes _again_ (I got the feeling that was a reaction Dennis got from her a lot) and made a disgusted sound in the back of her throat.

I, on the other hand, had no idea what he was talking about.

"Death by snu-snu?"

Dennis blinked at me. "Zap Brannigan?" he offered.

I stared blankly. The name meant nothing to me.

"Futurama?" he tried again.

Still nothing. A tv show, maybe? A movie? I'd watched Saturday morning superhero cartoons when I was a kid, but books had always been more my thing — it came with having a literature professor for a mom.

He made an exaggerated sigh. "Well, that just ruins the joke!"

"Sorry," I mumbled.

"She's not like you, Dennis," Amy said dryly. "She has this thing called _taste_."

"Ouch!" Dennis shook his head, pressing his hand up against his heart. "You cut me deep, just now, Amy. You cut me _real_ deep."

I looked at Amy, met her gaze, and she made a show of rolling her eyes skyward for the fourth time. She offered me a little smile, and I found myself smiling back.

"So!" he said, changing the subject. "The big topic everyone's talking about and no one can make up their mind over — what do you think of that new independent hero, Apocrypha?"

I startled. "What?"

He was asking me about _myself_?

"She's all anyone's talking about, these days. She beat Lung, she beat Bakuda, she apparently put Oni Lee through the ringer — and if the PRT knows anything about her, they're keeping it locked up tighter than Fort Knox."

"They are?" I asked. "And, uh, how is that significant?"

"PRT threat ratings are a matter of public record," Amy explained to me. "It's so the general public knows what to expect if they encounter a particular villain or independent hero, or how far away they need to evacuate if a cape fight breaks out."

"The PHO wiki actually gets most of their stuff directly from the PRT's public website, too," added Dennis. "Which is why it's such a big deal! The PRT usually has threat ratings out within _hours_ of a first official encounter with a cape, and it's been three _weeks_ since she met Armsmaster! It's like even _they_ can't figure her out!"

"Maybe they _do_ know what she can do, and they're just trying to figure out how the hell to fit it into their system," Amy said dryly. "What's the current theory on PHO, again?"

"Some kind of Breaker-Blaster combo," said Dennis. "I dunno about that, though. A guy called HammerTiem thinks she's a Trump that can shut down other capes' powers, but only as long as they're Asian. And it's not like we've ever seen her go up against any of the Empire, so you never know, you know?"

What? Who even… What kind of stupid power was _that_?

"Dennis," Amy began flatly, "that's stupid."

"It could be true! Powers are weird, Amy!"

"Not only is it stupid," she went on, "it's _stupidly_ stupid. It's stupid squared, then stupidly _cubed_. It's so stupid that it comes back around into _almost_ smart. _Almost_."

"Hey, if you've got a better idea…"

"I don't," she admitted shamelessly. "But I don't need to to know exactly how _stupid_ that theory is. _I healed Bakuda and Oni Lee_ , two weeks ago. A Trump shutting down their powers would _not_ have shattered his shoulder or broken her leg. That kind of Trump _definitely_ wouldn't have done what she did to Lung."

Dennis held up his hands.

"Okay, okay, if you say so!"

He let them drop again.

"And anyway, that isn't the big thing getting debated." He looked around, then leaned forward as though to share a secret. Almost without realizing it, I found myself leaning in, too. "Some people think she's killed before."

My heart skipped a beat.

"What?" Amy asked incredulously, but it came to me as though across a great distance. I stared into Dennis' face, but there was no guile, there, no suspicion, no accusation. There was no way he knew, right? About what had happened to Sophia?

Dennis nodded. "Yeah. A poster named ViewFromSpace says she heard it from a friend of a friend, and that the PRT knows about it but won't do anything. A PRT agent denied it in the thread, but the PRT hasn't made any press announcements, yet, and people are wondering."

"Wondering?" I asked.

"Well, there's been theories since she first popped up, you know," he said. "Whether she's an E88 plant or a newbie trying to muscle out Lung and the ABB. Or maybe she's just overzealous and doesn't care how much damage she does? The PRT doesn't talk about it, but _everyone_ on PHO already knows that Shadow Stalker used to get pretty violent, too, back before they made her a Ward."

 _That_ didn't surprise me. 'As above, so below.' It probably would have been _more_ shocking if it had turned out that Sophia was actually all sunshine and rainbows while in costume, but the idea that she was just as violent and cruel in her alter ego as she was in school wasn't exactly a stretch of the imagination. Lisa had said as much, in the aftermath of her death.

Amy snorted. "Shadow Stalker went after petty criminals and beat them up, Dennis. Apocrypha fought two of the most dangerous capes in the Bay — _three_ , if the rumors about what Bakuda could do are true. The amount of force you need to use against them just to make it out _alive_ is a _lot_ different than what you need to catch an unpowered thug."

Dennis shook his head. "Hey, I'm just the messenger, you know? I'm not saying I _believe_ it, but there are a bunch of people who do, and they're saying stuff like the PRT and the Protectorate need to bring her in or toss her in jail, and if Halbeard doesn't have enough gadgets and Miss 'All the Guns' is too afraid her bullets will bounce off, then Aegis can show them the justice of his raging muscles or Gallant can ride in on his white horse and save the day."

"Of course."

"And if things are _really_ bad, the awesomest of awesomes, Clockblocker, can descend from the skies and smite her with his holy wrath."

Amy chuckled a little. "Careful, Dennis, your bias is showing."

I couldn't help it. I stared at him, not quite slack-jawed, brow furrowed, as I tried to figure out _what the hell_ I just heard come out of his mouth.

"I…what?"

"And where's Vista in all of this?" Amy asked, indulging him. "Smiling for the cameras?"

"What, are you kidding me?" Dennis retorted. "She's leading the charge!"

Amy blinked. "She is?"

"Of course!" He nodded like it was the most natural thing. "She's the most experienced Ward, after all. Where else would she go but the front?"

"Okay, I'm going to repeat myself: that's stupid," said Amy. "When was the last time you heard of a Shaker who was famous for getting into fisticuffs? They don't, because it's monumentally stupid to fight with your hands when your power works at range."

"Experience trumps conventional wisdom!" Dennis declared. "Vista's just that awesome! Clockblocker is still the best, though. Space will always lose to time, that's just how it works."

I sighed and reached up to pinch the bridge of my nose. "I thought we were talking about stuff on PHO."

The both of them looked at me oddly.

"Taylor, that _is_ the stuff you see on PHO," Amy told me.

"The tamer stuff, too," added Dennis. "Like, there's fanfiction about Apocrypha already, too. People writing about her falling in love with Lung or Oni Lee, because sometimes mortal nemeses make the best lovers —"

"All right!" I interjected, voice higher and squeakier than I would have liked. My face must have been a bright, cherry red, because it felt like it was on _fire_. "I don't need to hear about that!"

Mercifully, the bell rang, signaling the end of lunch, so that I didn't have to hear any of the sordid details about people writing _smut_ about me. Because apparently, that was a thing.

"And that's my cue," said Dennis. "I'll see you ladies later."

He picked up his tray with one hand and gave a jaunty wave as he left.

Amy let out a long, exasperated sigh, then turned to me with a little smile. "In front of the school, like usual?"

"Yeah." I hesitated. "Hey, Amy?"

She turned back to me, halfway out of her seat. "Yeah?"

"Have you…noticed anyone _following_ us, the past week?"

She frowned and adopted a look of concentration, eyes glazing as she thought back. After a moment, she shook her head. "No, not that I can remember. Is…something wrong?"

I couldn't prove it, and even Lisa hadn't seen anyone, but… The feeling that someone had been watching me after school for the past several days, that wasn't just my imagination, was it?

"…It's nothing," I lied. "Don't worry about it."

Amy shrugged. "Okay. See you later, then?"

"Yeah. Later."

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

 **Some more fluff, and some more hints about things to come in the next few chapters. And our first male love interest for Taylor, maybe? Dennis shows up for now, but I have no idea if he's staying. What would you even call that ship? Skitblocker? A little weird. Clocker? No, that one's not clear enough. Cli — no, wait, that just sounds _vulgar_.**

 **Next chapter is a mid-arc interlude, featuring...well, that would be a spoiler. But it's called "Binary Liquidation" for a reason.**

 **As always, read, review, and enjoy.**

 **And for early access to chapters and bonus content:**

 **p a treon . com (slash) James_D_Fawkes**


	39. Interlude 5-a: Binary Liquidation

**Sunder 5.a: Binary Liquidation**

In hindsight, Lisa should have been expecting it. To be entirely fair, she _had_ been, although she'd been more iffy on the _when_ and the _how_.

That was, in the end, what tripped her up. She thought she'd have more time to plan, to get things ready, to prepare. More time to stack the deck in her favor, remove some of the riskier variables, figure out a way to _win_.

Real life, unfortunately, didn't actually work that way.

Friday started normally enough. Contrary to what tv dramas or action thrillers would have her believe, she didn't wake up that day with a bad feeling or any sense of impending doom. She didn't wake up with any particular foreboding, with any vague surety that _something_ was going to go wrong, today. She did not wake up wanting to run for her life without any real reason _why_.

It was a perfectly normal day. A bit overcast, but nothing as cliché as a downpour that was drowning the streets or an ominous thunderstorm threatening along the horizon. There was nothing that had been moved since she'd set it down the night previous, no indication of anything wrong, no smoke wafting under her bedroom door or nutty smell in her coffee.

Later, she thought to herself, _Isn't that the way it is for people who die of strokes or heart attacks or in car crashes?_

Of course, life did not come with convenient indicators that something was going to go terribly wrong that day when you woke up. Because that would be too convenient, for someone like Lisa. Easier to avoid.

Nothing happened immediately, though. When she went into the kitchen, the coffee maker didn't explode. When she got out of the shower, her hair dryer didn't electrocute her. When she sat down to eat, the toaster didn't catch fire. She ate breakfast as she usually did — although, considering it was a bowl of creamy potato-and-spinach soup, it might have been more appropriate to call it lunch — drank her coffee, showered, braided her hair — everything she did every day when she woke up, completely uninterrupted.

Then, she plopped down on the sofa and checked in on PHO, to catch up on the news and see what people were currently buzzing about. Even almost two weeks later, the discussion about the capture of Oni Lee and Bakuda was still going strong, and it showed no signs of slowing down. PHO had lost its collective shit when the PRT and Protectorate had announced that they had helped the new heroine, Apocrypha, take down the ABB's remaining capes — importantly, that _they_ had helped _her_ , and not the other way around.

That was a _big fucking deal_. Lisa didn't need to be a Thinker to see exactly how hard they were trying to appease Taylor, because _holy shit_ , the PRT _never_ gave that much credit to anyone else if they could manage to avoid it. There was a _reason_ that people on PHO sometimes joked that the "PR" in "PRT" actually stood for "Public Relations."

It only added to the hype surrounding Apocrypha, the new independent hero who had ousted the ABB as a major power in Brockton Bay in less than a _week_.

If the E88 hadn't fallen apart, currently squabbling and infighting and trying to figure out who should be the new leader, now that Kaiser was dead, a meeting probably would've been called to figure out how to deal with her. The only major group unaffected, now, was the Merchants, however, and they only cared insofar as the chaos benefited them.

The ABB leaderless and falling apart, the Empire tearing itself to pieces as they bickered about who should succeed their late "emperor" on the throne… Looking back on it, she probably should have known what was going to happen as a result of all of that. There were other players in the game who wouldn't take kindly to a newcomer that seemed to be peeling the villains apart, one gang at a time.

She closed out of PHO and shut her computer down once she was done checking up on the news, then made her way back to her bedroom to finish getting dressed. The shirt, skirt, and leggings she'd picked out the night before were put on without any fanfare or trouble — they were casual clothes, because she was going to meet Brian and Alec for coffee, not have dinner with the Mayor. Her phone and her purse were both grabbed without thought, and the last thing she did before she left, as she had done every day for the last two weeks, was slip on the amulet Taylor had given her.

The door was locked and her secret alarm armed on her way out. It wouldn't stop Coil or even a determined burglar, but it _would_ let her know if her "boss" was trying to snoop, and that was why she'd bought it in the first place.

Standing on the sidewalk outside of the Loft, Lisa checked her watch. Two-fifteen. She was supposed to meet the others at two-thirty.

Stifling a yawn, Lisa started off towards the Boardwalk and the gourmet coffee shop they'd agreed to meet at. She'd have to take it easy for a few days, she decided. She was already brushing up against the limits of how much and how often she could use her powers, and Coil would undoubtedly want someone to attack the Mayor's fundraiser, next weekend. She needed to be in top form if it wound up being the Undersiders.

It took a little over ten minutes to make the walk to the Boardwalk and only another minute or two to make a beeline for the coffee shop, a quaint little place with an outside terrace and a spectacular view of the city skyline. There was no sign of either of her teammates waiting for her, so she went up to the counter and splurged a little on one of the designer coffees that was this shop's specialties.

It was always fun to watch a barista who loved his job carefully mix her drink, the effort he put into stirring not too fast or too slow, in exactly measuring the amount of sugar and cream she asked for. Just for the dedication he showed (a boy a few years her senior, named Richard, who thought she was way out of his league, but wanted to do something nice for her), she offered him her prettiest smile when he handed over her mug and stuffed a generous five dollar tip in his jar.

The exuberant "thank you!" he called after her made her day, and she wasn't ashamed to admit it.

Sipping at her coffee, she left the shop main and found a seat at a table on the terrace, picking particularly one farther away and less conspicuous — the better to have a clandestine meeting. Not that it would matter overmuch, because schools were only just starting to let out and it was way too early for too many people to be there. Aside a few college kids, she was alone.

Ten minutes passed as she sat there, nursing her coffee, looking out at the distant rooftops of the city's skyscrapers. A couple of high school girls came and went, chatting inanely about something or other (the blonde, Angela, was gushing to her friend, Nicole, about the football player she had a crush on by the name of Brad), and for a moment, Lisa found herself jealous of them.

What did they have to worry about? Boys, clothes, shopping. Getting good grades and getting into a good college. They weren't plotting the overthrow of a supervillain or trying to juggle a nuclear warhead in the form of a teenage girl. They had it so much easier.

How much simpler her life would be, if Coil and powers and capes didn't exist. How much better things might be, if she was just a normal girl in a normal world, where her biggest concern was who she was going to take to Prom. She wondered, would she still be friends with Taylor? Would her life have been any better? Or would she still be stuck with parents who sucked at being actual parents, hating every moment of her life and unable to escape?

Lisa sipped her coffee and told herself that it didn't matter, because it hadn't happened. This was the world she lived in, not that imaginary one. It was no use pondering that sort of what-if. Life wasn't like Alec's video games, where you could go back to a previous save and try again. Besides, aside from the obvious things, there wasn't much about her life now that she disliked and even less that she hated.

If she had the choice, she'd choose to keep her powers every single time.

Probably, though, she'd never have come to Brockton Bay. She wasn't sure she would've fared any better in another city, but it wasn't like _all_ villains had the resources that Coil did. It was just as likely she could have avoided being press-ganged if she'd just gone to Pittsburgh or Seattle instead.

By the time Lisa had finished navel-gazing long enough to check the time, another ten minutes had passed her by. There was no sign of Brian or Alec, and no call had been received by the phone she'd set down on the table. When she checked her watch, it said two-fifty — they were already twenty minutes late.

Maybe they'd been held up by something? God knew Alec only moved as fast as he wanted to move, and Brian only got any _real_ respect out of him when they were on the job. If Alec decided that whatever he was doing (buying the latest video game in his favorite series, which had been released a week ago) was more important, then even Brian would have to fight with him to pull him away.

Of course, that was supposing that Brian himself hadn't gotten distracted pulling his little sister out of whatever mess she'd made for herself, now. Lisa didn't envy him trying to raise a hellion like that, not when she was at _that_ age. The only thing harder to raise than a two-year-old who had just discovered the word "no" was a teenage girl in the middle of her rebellious phase.

Suddenly, her phone chimed to let her know she had a text. Lisa picked it up off of the table, swiped the screen, and navigated the interface with her thumb.

 _One new message_ , it said. The number wasn't one she recognized, and there was no ID to go along with it. A burner phone, most likely. Probably Coil asking her for an update on the "new recruit," like he had been for the past week. She'd have to come up with something convincing, or else he was going to catch on and the whole charade would fall apart.

It was no such thing. Instead, when she opened the message, there was only one word, written out in all caps:

 _RUN_

She didn't understand, at first. She just sat there, staring dumbly at the screen, as her thoughts all ground to a halt.

Then, something slammed into her, pushing her back into her chair a little, and clattered to the ground with a metallic clink. Blinking, Lisa looked down to see what looked like a smushed silver pellet about the circumference of a quarter or a silver dollar, sitting innocently between her feet.

The thunderous _CRACK_ came a few seconds later like the rumble of distant storm clouds.

It took a moment for her brain to catch up with what was going on, to realize what had just happened.

"Shit!"

The instant she did, she dove under her table and out of sight, just in time to watch the back of her chair splinter and shatter right where her heart would have been, if she'd still been sitting in it.

 _[A sniper.]_

 _No shit, power!_ She gave the mental equivalent of a snarl.

She looked at the mangled remains of her chair, where half of the back looked like it had been violently blown off or ripped away — by _Alexandria_. The jagged remains jutted out like a starburst, as though to point out where the bullet had made contact, where it would have torn through her if she hadn't moved, hadn't been wearing that amulet.

 _[High caliber rounds. 0.50 caliber. Anti-material. Designed for penetrating tanks and armored vehicles. Wants to make sure the job gets done. Wants to make sure damage is too extensive to survive, even if he misses an instant kill. Is a he. Is one of Coil's mercenaries.]_

 _Fuck!_ Lisa mouthed. _Fuck, fuck, fuck!_ That was bad. That was _really_ bad.

Her hand shot up to the pendant she wore around her neck, the thing that had almost certainly just saved her life. If not for that little piece of gold, she would have had a hole the size of a particularly large softball right in the middle of her chest, now. If she hadn't died immediately, she would've been in screaming, mind-numbing agony — for maybe a minute or two.

 _Taylor, the next time I see you, I'm going to bow down and make sweet love to your toes._

"Fuck," she said aloud. "Okay. Okay. Calm down and _think_. Where did that come from?"

She looked back up at the chair, at the shattered back that had been ripped apart, then towards the terrace behind it and the wall a short ways off, where there was a large chunk gouged out of it. And the first round had hit her from the front, dead on. She'd been facing towards the city.

 _[On a rooftop.]_

 _Yes, thanks, power, I hadn't figured that out!_ She thought.

 _[Not working alone,]_ her power continued. _[Coil doesn't like risk. Coil doesn't like chances of failure. Part of a team.]_

"Fuck!" Lisa swore. "When it rains, it pours, doesn't it?"

She turned towards the shop, where the barista from earlier (Richard) had come to the window to investigate the noise. He was gaping, staring at the damage caused by the second round that had obliterated her chair. She just hoped he was smart enough to stay inside, because she had no idea if the merc that had just taken two shots at her had any qualms about killing an innocent bystander.

Who was she kidding? Of course he didn't. What kind of moral, just person took a contract to kill a teenage girl in the first place?

"Okay. All right. So, it came from the city — of course it did, there's nowhere in the bay for him to shoot from aside the Rig. A rooftop in downtown, most likely. Longer sight lines, fewer obstacles, better vantage points. Nothing to get in his way, as long as I was out in the open enough."

She took a few deep breaths, trying to get her rapidly beating heart to slow down, a little. The adrenaline wasn't making it any easier to think clearly.

"Which means this was probably a setup. Coil wanted me out here so that his lackeys had a clear shot. So that they knew _exactly_ where I would be at what time. Does Brian know? No, probably not. It's a line he's not willing to cross. Alec…more likely, but I'm still gonna say no. He might be a prick, but it'd cost way too much to get him on board. Bitch wouldn't agree to it, and she didn't have anything to do with today's meeting anyway."

That was a bit of a relief. She and her team might not have been BFFs, but she hadn't thought any of them hated any of the others enough to be party to her assassination.

"Which means either Brian asked without knowing what Coil planned, or Coil was listening in on our conversation and set this up without them knowing anything. Probably the second. He's sneaky enough for that, and he probably doesn't trust anyone in the team enough to contact them directly, yet."

And _that_ meant that this might be a clean sweep, Coil getting rid of the Undersiders now that he felt they were slipping through his fingers. That…was possible, but it was more likely that it was just her. The rest of the team could be salvaged if Lisa was the only one compromised.

 _[Apocrypha also person of interest.]_

…No, not just her. Taylor, too. If she messed with his powers, then she was a liability, and Coil didn't suffer liabilities if he couldn't maintain them as assets.

Fuck. She needed to tell Taylor right away —

CRACK

The table in front of Lisa splintered and exploded, and she yelped, tumbling backwards, as the bullet continued on and blew apart the seat of the chair, too. A moment later, the rumble of the gunshot reached her ears.

Okay, yeah, tell Taylor, _but get somewhere safe, first_.

Biting her lip, Lisa looked out from beneath the table. There weren't many options for safe spots to run to, because this section of the Boardwalk had a wide, yawning gap between the opposite sides. The best she was going to be able to do, right now, was — _there_.

Getting her legs up underneath her, Lisa grabbed a few shards of porcelain from her destroyed mug, wound up her arm, then tossed them in the opposite direction to confuse the sniper. The moment they left her hand, she kicked off the ground and threw herself into a dead sprint for the closest building she'd been able to find: a big, green porta potty.

The twenty yard gap felt like a hundred. She ran as fast as she could, but it still felt like trying to make a mile in less than ten seconds. Five, ten, fifteen feet — she raced at speeds that, later, she would marvel at, eating up the ground at a pace that would put Olympic sprinters to shame, and still, it felt like too long. There was no way she was going to make it.

At the last fifteen feet, she pushed herself forward in a long jump that would have wowed her elementary school PE teacher and tucked herself into a roll as she landed. The porta potty thudded when she came to a stop, the back of her head bouncing off of the door.

On the road that she had just crossed, another chunk was torn out as the fourth round exploded against it with a thunderous CRACK. Of all the misses so far, this one was the most egregious — he had to be making the shot from at least half of a mile away.

"Fuck," Lisa breathed. "Fuck…"

Shaking hands reached for her phone, which she had dropped upon landing, and thankfully, it hadn't suffered any damage. She had to try three times before she managed to get Taylor's number dialed from her contacts list.

The phone rang. And rang. And rang. And rang. It seemed to ring forever, until finally, there was an answer.

"Taylor, listen," Lisa began, "it's Coil, he's —"

" _Your call has been forwarded to an automated voice message system,"_ a pleasant female voice said. _"_ Uh, Taylor Hebert — _is not available. At the tone, please record your message. When you have finished recording, you may hang up or press one for more options. To leave a callback number, press five."_

BEEP

Swearing, Lisa pressed the end call button and let her head thunk back against the porta potty.

Of all the terrible, fucking luck. The one day, the _one day,_ where Lisa _absolutely needed_ Taylor to answer her phone, and she didn't answer. Just… Fucking hell…

POP — something pinged off the side of Lisa's head like a pebble, and it clattered to the ground with a metallic clink. Lisa stopped cursing her luck, blinked, and looked in the direction it came from — and felt her stomach go cold.

There, crossing the distance, was a man dressed as an Enforcer, and in his hands, he carried a pistol — a glock, equipped with a silencer — that was raised and aimed in her direction.

 _[Not working alone,]_ her power repeated. _[Part of a team.]_

Plan B, in other words. If the sniper failed, a ground team to take her out.

 _In broad fucking daylight_.

She was on her feet almost before she realized what she was doing, and then she whipped around and raced away in the direction of the Docks as quickly as she was able. She wasn't thinking at all about where she was going, just about getting away.

The sound of footsteps following after her was like thunder.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck!" she swore breathlessly as she ran.

How many timelines could Coil keep open? Two, three? How many of those was he dedicating to seeing her removed? All of them?

Had acquiring Dinah Alcott really made him _that_ confident?

Bad news. Bad _fucking_ news. Trying to plan around his power was hard enough when you had days or weeks to meticulously pick it apart and figure out how he worked and how he used it. Trying to do that while running away from a hit team sent to kill you? How the fuck was she supposed to manage _that_?

It didn't seem like she had much of a choice, though.

Lisa made a sudden turn, nearly tumbling ass over teakettle as her momentum tried to carry her forward, then began racing down the street. The buildings around her started to go from the sparkly, clean, newly built ones on the Boardwalk to the disheveled, decaying brick ones that made up the Docks and Old Town. Behind her, her pursuers gave chase.

Safe place, safe place, safe place, where could she go? The Loft was out, immediately. That was the first place Coil would check for her, and unless the rest of the team had made it back, yet, he could afford to demolish it or bring it down around her ears. It would be easy to later claim some other group had done it, and without her there to gainsay him, the Undersiders would have to believe it.

And just as importantly, the pendant might be bulletproof and it might stop other projectiles, but it wouldn't be able to do much if the ceiling came crashing down on her head.

The hospital? No, that was a fucking terrible idea. Not only was there the chance she might run into one (or both) of the Dallon sisters, either one of whom would be less than happy to see her, but she doubted Coil's mercs would have any qualms about following her in there. If they were at all trained, they'd have a guy at the front entrance, a guy at the back, and the rest of the team would follow her in.

She preferred not to get strangled in a janitor's closet, thank you.

Lisa swung a right at the next intersection, then made a sudden swerve into an alleyway and threw herself behind the dumpster it housed. She slapped her hands over her mouth to muffle the sound of her breathing and waited, pulse pounding in her ears, for the team of mercs to pass her by. When she heard them go, she let out a short breath and grabbed again for her phone.

A second time, she dialed Taylor's number.

She needed to tell Taylor. She _needed_ to. To not warn Taylor of a threat against her life when Lisa knew about it was a betrayal of trust — as the insistent tugging inside of her chest kept telling her.

" _Your call has been forwarded to an automated voice message system,"_ the recorded voice said again. _"_ Uh, Taylor Hebert — _is not available. At the tone, please record your message. When you have finished recording, you may hang up or press one for more options. To leave a callback number, press five."_

BEEP

"Fuck!" Lisa screamed, frustrated, into the receiver. "Why aren't you answering, Taylor! I need you to fucking answer me!"

"You hear that?" someone asked.

"Double back, check the alleyways," said another. "Boss wants this done. She doesn't get away, understand?"

"Fuck!" Lisa shouted, surging back to her feet. She took off at a run, again, clipping the side of the dumpster on her way out of the alley — which fucking _hurt_.

"There she is!" one of them shouted as she came into view. She didn't even face them, she just turned and went full tilt in the opposite direction.

POP — something, a _bullet_ , bounced off of the back of her left shoulder, and she stumbled a little from the impact, then redoubled her efforts and kept going.

Fuck, fuck, fuck. Somewhere safe, somewhere safe…

Where else? The castle? Yeah — wait, no, fuck, because if she went there, she couldn't tell Taylor about the threat to her life. Somehow, she didn't think she'd get cell phone reception under thousands of gallons of water. She'd be safe from Coil, but the geis would get her, and having _that_ happen with the entire bay over her head sounded even _less_ fun than getting fucking strangled.

Where, where, where… The Mayor? No, that was stupid. The Protectorate? Haha, no, that was equally stupid. She might as well just giftwrap herself for Coil's inside guys. New Wave? Probably turn her out on her ass, and they were all the way on the other side of the fucking _city_.

She turned another corner and kept going, headed towards Downtown, now. Maybe if she got far enough into the city… But there was no counting on that, not if Coil _really_ wanted her gone.

Protectorate was out, PRT was out for the same reason, hospital was out, the castle was fucking out. New Wave, out. How about the BBPD? No, that would start a shootout, and then she'd have to answer a whole fuckton of uncomfortable questions about why she was being chased. It'd be _days_ before they let her go, if they didn't figure things out and hand her over to the fucking PRT, that was.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, where else?

Damn it, where else could she fucking _go_?

POP — another bullet hit her in the back of the head, and she stumbled, fell, and skidded along the pavement, tearing up her knees and her left hand, which she'd thrown out to catch her fall. She got up as soon as she could, hissing in a pained breath, and when she looked down at herself, she could see how badly she'd skinned them. Blood flowed freely over her ripped leggings and down her fingers.

Her knees and palm throbbed from the pain, and she'd be feeling it for days as they healed, but she probably wouldn't need special care, thank fuck for that.

POP, POP, POP — three more rounds hit her in the back, and she stumbled, but managed to stay upright, and when she glanced behind her, it was to see six mercs with guns raised, rapidly gaining on her.

She turned back and started again, but slipped, stumbled, and fell again, because she'd just stepped on her fucking _phone_ , wasn't that just fucking _perfect_. Whatever god was looking down on her at least made sure that she didn't break it, so she scooped it up and kept going.

Okay. Okay. Where else? Where the fuck else?

Nothing came to mind.

 _Damn it_ , where the _fuck_ was she supposed to _go_?

Panting, Lisa made a turn, then another turn, then a few more turns, just to confuse things, racing along the streets as her legs screamed at her to stop. That she even managed to last as long as she had was likely due to the training Taylor had put her through, because the Lisa of a month ago wouldn't have made it past the first block without being taken out or overrun.

When Lisa threw herself into another alleyway, pressing her back against the brick, there weren't any mercs passing by, this time. She'd bought herself enough of a breather to take a moment and _think_. She didn't hold any illusions about escape, though. They'd manage to find her eventually. They'd managed it when she was just a homeless pickpocket, after all.

Okay. Where could she go? Where could she fucking go?

… _Damn it_ , why couldn't she think of anything that wouldn't end up with her _dead_? There was nowhere she could go that didn't have one problem or another, and most of them were places well within Coil's grimy fucking paws, so where the fuck was she supposed to —

…She _did_ have somewhere she could go. Somewhere Coil and his mercs couldn't reach her, somewhere where they'd get themselves hurt or killed just to try, and somewhere where she could tell Taylor about all of this without breaking her geis.

It was an idea. A horrible fucking idea with so much different shit that could go horribly fucking _wrong_ , but it was the only one she could think of that didn't wind up with her dead _for sure_.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, what _choice_ did she fucking have?

Shakily, Lisa lifted up her phone and dialed for the third time.

It rang.

"Taylor. Taylor, I need you to fucking answer me, all right, because this is a terrible fucking idea, I know it is, I know how fucking terrible it is, but I don't have a better one and I need you to tell me it's okay."

It rang, and rang, and rang. Finally…

 _Click_.

" _Your call has been forwarded to an automated voice message system,"_ the recorded voice said again. _"_ Uh, Taylor Hebert — _is not available. At the tone, please record your message. When you have finished recording_ — _"_

"FUCK!" Lisa screamed again. "Our _lives_ are in fucking _danger_ , and I'm about to do something that could get me _fucking killed_ , if not _worse_! Answer your goddamn phone, you stupid bitch!"

"Over there! I thought heard something!"

"Go, go, go!"

"Fuck!" Lisa shoved herself off of the wall, then left the alleyway and headed — not towards Downtown, but towards the other end of the Docks, where the older neighborhoods were located. The ones that hadn't quite been left behind by the march of progress, but had been around long enough that no one rich and powerful in the city lived there anymore.

She knew where she could go. She just had to hope she could make it there before her body gave out and that she wouldn't be killed when she got there.

Lisa ran. She ran and ran and ran, as fast and as far as her legs could carry her. She didn't know if she outran her pursuers, eventually, or if they managed to keep pace with her all the way. She didn't know how long she ran for or how she even managed to keep going. She just kept running the entire way, until her legs screamed, until her lungs burned, until her head pounded and ached.

When, at last, she turned the final corner onto the street of a cozy suburban neighborhood, when she finally laid eyes upon her destination and saw just how _close_ she was, the relief that hit her almost stole what little energy she had left. The only thing that kept her going was that she knew she couldn't stop until she was all the way there.

When she crossed the street and felt the wave of cold pass over her, she knew she was safe. When her feet found the slightly unkempt grass of the front yard and nothing arose out of the ground to smite her for trespassing, she knew she was welcome. When she reached to front porch, when she laid one foot on the step that had once been wobbly and rotten, she collapsed right then and there.

She wasn't ashamed to admit she sobbed. She sobbed like a little girl, laughing in-between sobs as hot, relieved tears dripped down her nose and snot dribbled over her upper lip.

"I-I guess," she hiccupped, "you f-finally _did_ g-get me over here for d-d-dinner, Taylor."

Above her head, the Hebert family home loomed like a silent guardian.

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

 **And now things get...complicated.**

 **The placing of this chapter is somewhat odd. In some ways, it would be a better fit if it took place after _next_ chapter. There's several reasons why it's not, but I won't go into all of them, here. **

**It shouldn't be hard to guess the reason for this chapter's title.**

 **Incidentally, this is a mid-arc interlude. Sunder isn't done, yet. 5.5 is next, then 5.6, then 5.7, then _maybe_ we'll get up to 5.8, with 5.b for last.**

 **A reminder for those of you who forgot: Collateral 4.3 lists "Max Anders" among those still missing, last known to be in his office, when the Medhall building gets bombed by Bakuda. As Lisa here confirms, he did, indeed, die** — **as is appropriate for a Nazi, an ignoble death** **. If you want to imagine he was in the bathroom when the floor fell out from under him, that's entirely your prerogative.**

 **As always, read, review, and enjoy.**

 **And for early access to chapters and bonus content:**

 **p a treon . com (slash) James_D_Fawkes**


	40. Sunder 5-5

**Sunder 5.5**

As I had every day for the past week, I found Amy waiting for me at the top of the steps outside the front doors, although she looked distinctly less happy than she had the days previous. When I walked up to her, she turned to me, grimace in place, and offered an explanation without any prompting.

"Dean's busy with his internship program, today," she informed me with all the grimness of an undertaker, "so Vicky had to catch a ride with one of her other friends. She's not entirely happy about that."

"Oh."

Again, Vicky and I weren't on good terms, and the extra week hadn't done anything to improve that. At the very least, she had yet to approach me at all, let alone to offer an apology for my broken arm and the ribs she'd bruised.

Amy jerked her head in the direction of the stairs. "Let's get out of here, before she decides to come back and have a 'sisterly bonding moment.'"

Like _that_ would go well. They were fighting over me in the first place, so putting all three of us together would probably blow up in some way, and if a fight broke out, there went my secret identity. _In front of my school_.

I _really_ didn't want something like that to happen.

"Yeah, sure," I said, and I fell into step beside her as we made the familiar journey towards the bus stop.

When we'd safely put Arcadia far enough behind us that I wasn't worried about eavesdroppers, I asked Amy, "So, what was that all about?"

"What was what all about?" she asked back.

"That whole… _thing_ , today at lunch."

She glanced over at me. "You mean _Dennis_?"

"Yeah." I nodded.

"You know, I don't know?" she said, shaking her head. "Dennis isn't really a cape geek, or… Well, a gossip, really. He's not usually the one talking about the latest news on PHO about the new hero on the block or whether Assault and Battery are actually in a relationship. It's not that he doesn't keep up with that stuff or whatever, any less than anyone else probably does, I mean, but it's not an obsession. Um, you know what I mean?"

"I…guess so, yeah."

Even if you weren't a cape geek — and aside from something of a phase when I was younger, I'd never been — there were some capes you couldn't escape knowing. Alexandria, Eidolon, Legend, Hero. Armsmaster, Miss Militia, Mouse Protector. Lung, Kaiser, Skidmark. Capes that were in the news or in the public eye often enough that you couldn't have gone without hearing their names. Capes that were so big, either locally or nationwide, that they got more coverage and broader exposure than a politician up for reelection.

"I mean, I don't know him _that_ well," she went on. There was a… _complicated_ expression on her face. "Um, he's more… _Dean's_ friend, you know? Than mine. Or Vicky's. But, uh, he doesn't…usually talk about cape stuff? I mean, if the conversation heads that way, then yeah, but other than that…"

I didn't say anything. It wasn't like I could correct her or anything. The sum total of my interaction with Dennis was that hour during lunch, and I'd never so much as seen him before that.

"Did, uh, that bother you?" Amy asked, brow furrowed. "Those rumors he mentioned?"

"A little," I confessed, frowning. "I mean, it wasn't like I hadn't heard about them before, but…"

A rumor that I was a murderer. Whether you considered what had happened to Sophia murder or not, the only people who should know what actually happened were me and the Protectorate — and the Protectorate only had the vaguest of ideas, because I'd never actually told them the full story or exactly what my defenses were capable of.

So, if we were the only ones who knew, then if _I_ hadn't talked about it to anyone else aside Lisa and Lisa couldn't let it slip without betraying my trust, the only people left were…

I didn't want to think it, after how kindly Armsmaster had treated me, after the nobility he'd shown in all our interactions, few though they were. The feel of Miss Militia's arms as she helped me to my feet was one I could never forget. The smile she'd offered that first night would stay with me forever.

But there were only so many possibilities. If not me, if not Lisa, then the Protectorate was basically the only ones who could have.

… _Unless it was Coil,_ I thought suddenly, and it very well could be. It didn't make me any happier, but it made sense, when I put it into context with what Lisa had said of him. He liked to use leverage to reel people in. Carrot and stick. Blackmail, if honeyed words and empty promises didn't work. If he didn't have a way of getting you, then he'd manufacture one.

And painting me as a murderous villain, telling the whole world I'd killed someone before, sounded like a perfectly valid method of burning my bridges and forcing me into his hands.

 _Fucking Coil_ , I wanted to snarl. I hadn't even done anything to him or anyone on his payroll, and he was already trying to come after me.

"Yeah, that's the roughest part about being a cape," said Amy, breaking me from my thoughts. A tired, knowing smile curled her lips. "The minute your name's out there, people like to start making stuff up about you. Who you're in a relationship with, what gang is gonna recruit you, who you might be working for. You get all kinds of guys with all kinds of different theories and rumors they hear from 'a friend of a friend.' It's all bullshit."

Except this particular one was kind of true, I didn't say. Explaining the circumstances of Sophia's death would inevitably lead to my Trigger Event, and I wasn't yet at the point where I wanted to share that with Amy.

 _A great presence, filling me, consuming me, gnawing away at me from the inside out. Every part of me being transformed, altered, changed, to match_ _ **her**_ _shape. Every thought unraveling, everything that made me_ _ **me**_ _being overwritten_ —

"Yeah, I guess so," I said, locking that memory away. "Do you…ever get used to it?"

"Eventually," Amy said with a tired sigh. She gave an exasperated shake of her head. "You learn to keep it from getting to you. That doesn't stop it, though. People _still_ wonder if I'm Othala's long lost cousin or something, just because we both have healing powers. And Vicky, uh…" She coughed awkwardly, grimacing. "Still…gets, uh, kinda steamed, whenever someone calls her 'Collateral Damage Barbie.'"

A startled laugh managed to tear its way out of my throat. "Wait, what?"

"Well, she's an Alexandria Package," Amy explained. "She can go through brick walls without much effort, you know? So, sometimes, she… _forgets_ exactly how strong she is."

My right arm twinged in remembered pain, and I grimaced, too. "Yeah, I guess so."

It wasn't like I was really any better. The fact that I hadn't quite understood how strong Siegfried really was didn't change how much damage I'd caused with him, that first night.

Amy coughed awkwardly again.

"Anyway, so, people started calling her by that nickname after one too many cars she broke or craters she made. It's, uh. It stuck, and she's not…really happy about it."

"Yeah. Yeah, I imagine not."

I was sympathizing with Victoria Dallon. The oddity of that was not lost on me, that I was sympathizing with the girl who had done me grievous bodily harm.

"So, your advice is to just…deal with it?"

She shrugged. "It's not like there's much else you can do, you know? This is America. People have the inalienable right to be complete and utter assholes."

I couldn't help it. I laughed.

"What?" I managed.

She shrugged again. "It's true," she said. "If there's one thing I've learned from being a healer the past couple of years, it's that people are selfish, self-entitled jerkoffs who think that they deserve whatever it is they want from you, and if you don't give it, you're cruel and heartless and don't deserve to call yourself a human being. People on the internet are the same: they think they can say whatever the fuck they like, and fuck you if you think it's offensive, because the First Amendment means no one can tell them what they can and can't say."

"That's… I mean…"

It seemed incredibly cynical, but I found that I didn't have anything I could say to refute it. There _were_ people making up rumors about me, but they were faceless bystanders who could be anywhere in the country — anywhere in the _world_. I had no power to stop them from saying whatever they wanted, and one way or another, trying would be a wasted effort.

It was a little frustrating, I had to admit. That I would have to simply sit there and watch people make up stuff, even when I told them they were wrong. That they could spread their rumors basically without consequence.

Maybe, because of Emma and the Trio, I was more sensitive to that than most. But it felt like I had the right to be.

"Even the Protectorate can't escape it," she went on, "and they have a whole department dedicated to public relations. That's just the way it is."

That wasn't comforting at all.

"Grin and bear it, huh?"

"Grin and bear it," Amy confirmed grimly.

Yeah, not comforting in the slightest.

Suddenly, Amy stopped walking, brow furrowing, eyes narrowing, lips twisting into a bewildered frown. "Wait," she said.

I stopped, too, and turned to face her fully. "What?"

"Where _are_ we?" she asked me.

"Chatham Street," I answered immediately. "The way we've _been_ going. Cross the street from the school, right, left, right onto Chatham, straight for two blocks, then left onto…Essex, I think."

It was a bit out of the way, but bus schedules were what they were, so it was the only stop that would get her home at a reasonable time. It also skirted a bit closer to the Docks and Old Town than I thought either of us would have liked, but beggars couldn't be choosers.

"Taylor," Amy said lowly, "this isn't Chatham Street."

"Sure it is," I replied. "We took a right, then a left, then another right, so we should be…"

I turned to look around and stopped.

Because this _wasn't_ Chatham Street.

"How did we…"

But it _was_ familiar. Of course it was, this was the route I'd taken for almost two months to the warehouse where I'd been practicing my powers. It was nestled in the no-man's land between the city proper and the territory the ABB had staked its claim to, and this particular street ran parallel to Chatham, only about three blocks over.

It was also completely and utterly abandoned, because the people who used to live here had long ago learned that it was dangerous to live on the edges of gang territory, where the streets could violently change hands from day to day.

"We're on Jefferson Street," I said slowly.

"Yes, we are," Amy replied, like I was being stupid on purpose.

"How did we get on _Jefferson Street_?"

I'd been paying more attention to Amy than I had been the road, but the route we took had become familiar, become routine. Even if my eyes weren't watching, my feet knew the way; we'd gone the same way we had every other day, this week.

So, how did we wind up _three whole blocks_ off course?

"Did we take a wrong turn somewhere?" Amy asked.

"I don't…think so?" I answered uncertainly. I shook my head a little. "No, because then we'd be somewhere else. Jefferson and Chatham are parallel."

"Maybe we walked too far, then."

I looked to her incredulously. "An extra _three whole blocks_?"

She scowled. "Well, unless you've got a _better_ idea…"

I chewed on my bottom lip. "I don't," I admitted.

Unless this was a cape's doing. Did Coil have a space warper on his payroll? I had no idea. I didn't _think_ so, and I didn't think the Undersiders had one, either, otherwise the fight at the bank would have gone a whole lot differently. Did Coil have more than one villain team working for him? I didn't know _that_ , either, and it seemed ludicrous, considering the kind of funding required to sponsor several teams like that.

But if it wasn't Coil, who else could it be? As far as I knew, the E88 and the ABB didn't have anyone like that, either. In fact, the only space warper in Brockton Bay that I knew about was —

Suddenly and without warning, the space around us wobbled and stretched out like a piece of elastic. The sidewalk became a football field. Five feet became fifty yards. The short walk that would have taken us to the front door of the apartments around us had transformed into a marathon. In a single instant, all avenues of retreat or advance had been bluntly cut off.

 _What the…_

A space warper.

There was no denying it now, that was who had trapped us. Someone who could change the distance between points by stretching out the space between them. Arbitrarily turning inches into feet, feet into yards, yards into miles, increasing minor gaps into yawning chasms, creating craters out of potholes, that was the enemy who had cornered us on this abandoned street.

As my mind whirled, my body subconsciously prepared for combat. Fight or flight instincts surged through my blood. My weight shifted to the balls of my feet. My muscles tensed and pulled taut.

 _Did_ Coil have access to such a cape? That was something I couldn't know. Lisa might have known, perhaps, but…no. If Lisa had known Coil had someone who could warp space, she would have told me. That much I was certain of. It would be a betrayal of my trust to keep information like that from me and ran counter to her goal of escape.

It didn't remove the possibility. If Coil was half as paranoid as Lisa had asserted, then there were undoubtedly assets he kept from her. Compartmentalization. It was the greatest defense against a Thinker of Lisa's level. Therefore, it was within the realm of possibility that he had a space warper that neither Lisa nor myself was aware of.

However.

A power like this was _noticeable_ , and for Brockton Bay, familiar. Utilizing it would invite comparison. Speculation. Inevitably, a degree of fame. The idea that Coil had somehow found and coerced a space warper of this level before they'd had a chance to use their powers in public even _once_ felt like an incredible stretch. It was simply unlikely.

Therefore, if this wasn't one of Coil's pet capes, then the only other person in the city who could fit this power set was…

Three figures appeared just as suddenly across from us in this vast and empty arena. Two were dressed in white: one, a familiar statuesque blonde girl in a dress and cape, the other, a boy probably my age in a bodysuit decorated with clockfaces. Each one appeared to be moving at different rates, some slower, some faster, and none at the same speed. One took up his entire face.

Glory Girl. The boy could only be Clockblocker.

Between them was a much shorter girl, maybe twelve or thirteen, with blonde hair and a tinted green visor that covered her eyes and ears. She was decked out in panels of what looked like ceramic body armor, painted a forest green, that protected her chest and upper arms, and her skirt was patterned with swooping, undulating green and white lines.

Vista. It had to be.

In that case, the one who had trapped us here was undoubtedly her, as well.

"Independent villain Apocrypha!" she called across the gap. My heart stuttered to a halt. _What?_ "By the power vested in me by the Parahuman Response Team, East-Northeast division, I am placing you under arrest for the murder of Shadow Stalker!"

"What?" I asked faintly.

But it was drowned out by Amy's startled, "What the fuck?!"

My head swam, and my thoughts swirled around each other, chasing one another as I tried to grasp the situation happening in front of me. But my scattered thoughts didn't have the coherency to put the pieces together, and so I stood there, staring dumbly at them, brow furrowed and mouth hanging slightly open.

This was…

What?

"No, what the _actual_ fuck?!" Amy demanded. "What the fuck is this? Some kind of joke? Vicky, did _you_ put them up to this?"

No, she didn't. That thought gave me clarity, gave me focus. No, no matter how much she disliked me, Victoria Dallon could not be responsible for this situation. It was a simple impossibility, an unavoidable truth. To declare my cape name so confidently, to accuse me of killing Shadow Stalker, both required knowledge that she should not have.

Knowledge that only Armsmaster, that only Miss Militia and the Director of the PRT, should have.

My eyes turned to the other two. Clockblocker and Vista.

Knowledge that only _they_ could possibly have access to.

Was it possible? I didn't know. I didn't know how. Armsmaster had assured me that the PRT wouldn't be pressing charges, that it had been ruled self-defense. What I'd understood, too, was that they'd be keeping everything under wraps, and that they had no intentions of sharing my identity out. My interactions with him, limited though they were, had not inclined me to disbelieve him.

Then, what was this?

I…had no answer for that.

"Move away from her, Amy," Victoria said stonily. " _Now_."

"Not until you explain what the _fuck_ is going on, Vicky!" Amy shouted back. "What do you think you're fucking _doing_ , pulling something like _this_?"

"I'm arresting a villain. A murderer, Amy!" Victoria snapped. "Who killed a _Ward_!"

"You can't just go around calling someone a villain or a murderer just because you don't like them!" Amy spat back. "Grow up, Vicky! _Grow. Up._ I made a new friend, _get the fuck over it_!"

"This isn't about _that_ , this is about her being a _villain_ , like I told you _from the beginning_ —"

"And you dragged Clockblocker and Vista into this fucking mess, too!" Amy talked over her. "Seriously, Vicky? You pulled them into _our_ argument —"

"She didn't drag _us_ into anything!" Vista interjected suddenly. " _I_ recruited _her_!"

"What?" said Amy, bewildered.

But all it did for me was confirm what I'd already suspected. Somehow, she'd found out the things only Armsmaster and Miss Militia should know.

" _I'm_ the one who put this together!" Vista spat indignantly, jabbing her thumb at her chest. " _Me_! This is _my_ op! Not Glory Girl, not Clockblocker, not the PRT or the Protectorate! ME!"

"What?" Amy repeated.

"And she!" Vista pointed at me. "She killed Shadow Stalker! I heard it from her own mouth!"

"What?" Amy said for the third time, somewhere between confusion and alarm.

"The _adults_ want to sweep it under the rug, because Apocrypha is a Trump who beat _Lung_ single-handedly!" I couldn't see her eyes, not through the opaque visor, but the way her brow furrowed and the rictus of fury that curled her mouth told me more than enough. "They're more concerned about how much more _useful_ she is than one of their own _goddamn_ Wards! They're letting her get away with _murder_ because she _might_ be the next Eidolon or Glaistig Uaine!"

She tried to pin me with an accusatory stare. But compared to Lung, compared to the hateful, baleful gaze of a twenty-foot dragon, it was woefully inadequate. It just made her look younger.

I almost wanted to laugh. Not because it was funny or because it deserved to be laughed at, but because it was so _wrong_. "Is that what you think actually happened?"

"You, shut up!" Victoria snarled. "You managed to talk your way out of helping the Undersiders at the bank, but I'm not about to let you try and make excuses for _murder_! If you think I'm going to let you try and twist my sister's head around some more, you've got another thing coming!"

Something hot coiled tightly in my belly. For a single moment, a brief flash, it was Blackwell standing across from me, telling me to stop making stuff up and wasting her time.

" _Excuses_?!" I spat. "How about the _truth_? Or doesn't that fucking _matter_ , if you've already made up your mind?!"

"I _heard_ you!" Vista spat back. "You admitted it! You _admitted_ killing her!"

"When?" I demanded furiously. "Where did you hear me say that?!"

"In the alleyway! After you captured Bakuda, while you were talking to Armsmaster! I _heard_ you admit to killing Shadow Stalker!"

The confession stalled me. "You were there."

" _I_ captured Oni Lee!" she said, proudly and indignantly, like she'd been waiting for _years_ to say it. " _I'm_ the one who held him off until the tranquilizers knocked him out!"

"You did _what_?" Amy asked incredulously. "Are you fucking _insane_? He could have _killed_ you!"

"I did what _had_ to be done!" Vista countered. "I didn't let him get away, like you and Miss Militia did!"

I tried to make sense of the idea, of where she could have been to both capture Oni Lee and listen in on my conversation with Armsmaster. There was no way she could have been in the alleyway itself, because we would have seen her, one way or the other. Miss Militia and Armsmaster had both come from the same direction, and if they'd passed her, she would have been caught, and if she'd been in either of the side alleys, my duplicate would have seen her when she went to retrieve Bakuda.

And if Oni Lee hadn't gone in any of those directions, either, had teleported _up_ , instead —

"You were on the rooftops," I concluded.

Vista pinned me with a laser-like focus. "That's right, I _was_. And I heard _everything_."

The anger slithered back. "Then you know that —"

"I know that you _killed_ her over a little bullying!" she spat. "Just because she —"

"A _little bullying_?" This time, I did laugh, a hollow, empty sound. "That's all you think it was? A _little_ —"

"I told you to _shut the fuck up_!" Victoria yelled. She started to rise off of the ground. "You don't get to try and wiggle out of this again!"

Her aura blasted out from her like a physical wave, and a sudden fear shooting through my belly forced me to take a step back. It was only an intervention of willpower that kept it from being more.

"Actually, you know what? Fuck it!" she said with grim fervor. "This whole talking thing is over. You can make your excuses down at the PRT cells. I'm taking you down, right now!"

She pulled back her fist, started to turn, getting ready to charge me. My muscles pulled taut, readying for the fight, and I pulled back my own arm. If she was determined to make this into a fight, then I'd answer that.

It would go differently, this time.

"Amy, step back," I said lowly.

"Wait, damn it!" Vista interjected. "I need to read her her rights, first! We have to do this as by the book as possible, or she'll get away, Glory Girl!"

Victoria didn't stop.

" _I don't care_!"

"Okay, time out!"

A hand reached out, viper quick, and tagged Victoria's bare leg, and instantly, she froze, mouth still curving around the last syllable, cape caught mid-flutter, utterly and unnaturally still. She was completely motionless, like a photograph or a movie paused mid-scene.

A statue.

"Wha — Clockblocker!"

"And…"

Clockblocker, who was the one who had frozen Glory Girl, turned to Vista, next, hand reaching out for her now, and she flinched away, starting to move — instead of her shoulder, he touched her skirt, and it froze, too, midway through swaying with the motion. Vista let out a startled gasp as she slammed against the frozen fabric, breath driven from her lungs in one, explosive sound.

"Cl-Clockblocker," she wheezed, one arm wrapped around her ribs, "wha…fuck…'re you _doing_?"

"Following orders," he said simply. "Miss Pig — uh, _Director Piggot_ was pretty clear, the one thing that I couldn't let happen was for this to turn into an actual fight."

Cautiously, I started to let the tension bleed out of my body.

"Wh-what?!" Vista sputtered breathlessly. "You… You went… to the _Director_?"

"The minute you told me your plans," he confirmed shamelessly.

"You… You sonnuva — !"

He held up his hands. "Hey, _you're_ the one who decided you knew better than the adults! I just figured, you know, there was no way it was a simple or as clear-cut as you thought it was! Also, it's kinda stupid to try and bring down a Trump that beat Lung like a drum."

"We could have taken her!" Vista snarled. "All you needed to do was touch her once —"

"Yes, but again, this _isn't_ as simple and clear-cut as you _think_ it is," Clockblocker rebutted. "Something I know, since I, you know, actually _asked_ Armsmaster and Director Piggot about it."

"She killed Shadow Stalker! That's pretty fucking simple and clear-cut!"

"And it's missing a whole _load_ of context and nuance," he shot back, "and other important stuff that makes it _way_ complex and convoluted, which, _again_ , I know, because I _asked_ about it. _Anyway_."

He stepped around Vista, staying well out of reach of her arms, and came up to me. I tensed again as he raised his hand, but all he did was lift it to the section of his mask that would be about the level of his mouth and dramatically clear his throat.

"Independent hero Apocrypha," he said formally, with the tone of something he'd practiced and rehearsed many times, "on behalf of Director Emily Piggot of the Parahuman Response Team, East-Northeast division, I'd like to apologize for this entire incident and any inconvenience it may have caused you."

"…What?"

"What the _hell_ are you doing, Clockblocker?!" Vista demanded.

"Uh, well, so." He rubbed at his neck. "When Vista came to me with this whole convoluted scheme, for her and I to trap you out here and arrest you, I went to the Director and told her, 'cause, you know, I figured she'd put a stop to it?"

"I…guess?"

I didn't know the Director, so I had no idea what he would or could reasonably suspect of her, but he seemed to take it as encouragement to continue.

"Except the Director decided this'd make a good lesson, for some reason," he went on. "You know, teach her about disobeying orders, going off on her own, acting on bad info? That sort of thing. Let her screw up, then reprimand her once it was all over. I was told to just keep an actual fight from breaking out, so no one got hurt."

He laughed nervously.

"That was before, uh, Vista decided to bring Glory Girl in at the last minute. I gave Armsmaster a call the minute I could, so he should be on his way here to handle things."

I thought I might have heard him say, "Thank God," under his breath.

"You _what_?!" screeched Vista.

I scowled.

So, they'd let her throw herself at me to prove a point. From an outside standpoint, it made a degree of sense, because I was a hero and I wouldn't _actually_ hurt her, so if she was going to stumble and fall on her face, I was the safest option — except _I_ was the one they'd let her throw herself at. Understanding _why_ didn't make me any happier about being a…a…an _object lesson_.

"I'm going to — what the fuck!?"

At that moment, Victoria unfroze.

Clockblocker let out a stifled groan and under his breath, muttered, "Great timing, power."

She turned to him, looked at where he was standing, and it seemed to click inside her head. "You froze me!" she snarled. "What the fuck, Clockblocker!"

"He's on _her_ side!" Vista said, gesturing, as much as she could while trapped by her skirt, in my direction.

" _What_?" Victoria screeched.

"I'm on the _Director's_ side!" he corrected, holding up his hands. "The one with all of the facts and details!"

"You _told_ on us?" Victoria snarled, fist raised threateningly. Splotches of red rose in her face. "You sonnuva — !"

"Hey, just because Shadow Stalker is dead doesn't mean any of her stupid ideas are any less stupid than they used to be!"

"Fuck you, Clockblocker!" Vista spat. Her skirt fluttered and fell back into place, but she didn't seem to notice. "Fuck you and your traitorous ass and your new murderer girlfriend, you —"

CRACK came the sickening sound of shattering bone. Vista's right arm exploded, vanished, between blinks. Red blood spurted from the wound, splattered like raindrops all over the pavement — more, way more than seemed possible for a single person, from a girl her size. She did a nauseating mockery of a pirouette, completed one full spin, more blood surging from the stump of her shoulder, then collapsed onto her back like a puppet with severed strings.

For a long moment, we were all frozen, and we stood there, stunned. A puddle began to form underneath her, a gushing torrent of vivid red — blood, oh god, there was so much _blood_ — that darkened the road and seeped out along the asphalt, expanding rapidly. My brain stuttered, died, tried to wrap itself around what my eyes were seeing, what was right in front of me, because it didn't make _sense_. One second, Vista was _fine_ , shouting, yelling, spewing anger at anyone in range. The next, _oh my god, her arm is gone!_

My stomach churned threateningly. My mouth was dry as a bone. There was no Siegfried in my head to offer experience and control.

 _CRACK_ came a sound like distant thunder.

It was Vista screaming that broke the echoing silence, the chilling, hair-raising sound of her screaming her lungs out. She thrashed on the ground as though trying to kill an invisible fire, kicking with her legs as her remaining hand went to her mutilated shoulder, rocking back and forth in her own blood.

For just an instant, for a fraction of a second, I was back in that alleyway, unable to see, unable to hear anything but my own screams, unable to feel anything but the agony of every nerve set ablaze. _I_ was the one rolling on the ground, trying to douse flames that weren't there, wishing, _begging_ for it to just _end_.

Around us, the altered space snapped back to its natural shape and size, returning us to a normal street in the middle of Old Town. Vista's power collapsed as suddenly as she did.

It was enough to set us all back into motion.

"SNIPER!" someone shouted. It might have been Clockblocker.

"Get out of the open!" commanded Victoria.

I made to move and duck out of the way, but before I could do anything, something slammed into me, forcing me back a step, and tinkled as it fell onto the road. When I looked down, there was a deformed metal disk, roughly the size of a silver dollar.

A bullet.

Someone was trying to kill me.

"Taylor!" Amy's voice called me, and when I looked to her, she'd stopped, halfway to the restaurant where Clockblocker and Glory Girl were carrying the injured Vista inside, stricken.

I moved without wasting another moment, grabbing Amy as I went, and space bent around us as I _stepped_ , and Vantage of Swiftness carried the two of us to the restaurant doorway. We stumbled through the door and into a dusty, abandoned room, with rundown tables and broken chairs, a musty countertop that stretched across half of it and sported an old, busted cash register. It looked like it hadn't been used in ten years, except maybe by squatters.

Glory Girl and Clockblocker were clearing off one of the tables, haphazardly throwing chairs and condiment containers out of the way, and once they had, they lifted a very pale, incoherent Vista onto the top of it. Splashes of red soaked her costume, and streaks of it clumped up her hair and painted grotesque patterns across her too-white skin.

She'd lost a lot of blood. Even I could tell, and I knew almost nothing about first aid or medicine.

Amy left my side before I even realized she'd moved, and she was pressing her hand up against the side of Vista's face. Before my eyes, the flow of blood from Vista's wound slowed to a trickle, then stopped.

"She's lost a lot of blood," Amy stated the obvious. "I've stopped the bleeding, for now, and I can use some of her fat stores to replenish the blood she's lost. I've numbed the wound so she doesn't feel the pain."

"Shit," Clockblocker swore quietly.

"Great going, Ames," said Glory Girl shakily.

I watched from the background, looking down at Vista, at her lolling head, at her ashen skin and her lips, now a faint shade of blue, as she babbled something under her breath — still, somehow, conscious after a blow that would have knocked a grown man out. She was flatter than I was, although the armored plates that protected her chest did a good job of hiding it, and if she was taller than five feet, I would eat my shoes.

She was just a kid, I thought. Couldn't have been older than thirteen. Probably still in middle school. What did she know about what I'd been through? What did she know about what Sophia had done to me, about the Trio's cruelties? What did she know about Winslow and the useless staff and the hangers-on and social climbers?

Nothing. She didn't know anything about that. She didn't know anything about the shoves in the hallway, the trips on the stairs, the targeted barbs, the mean-spirited pranks, the desecration of my mother's flute — _the Locker_. She didn't know anything about Mister Gladly and his worthless, half-hearted offer of help. She didn't know anything about the girls who would sell their souls to be at the top of the pyramid with Emma, the teachers who neglected their duty because it was easier or because Sophia was a Ward.

She knew _nothing_ about how I'd suffered for the past year and a half.

And how could any decent person — how could a _hero_ hold that against her?

"Can you heal her?" I found myself asking.

Amy scowled and shook her head faintly. "The best I can do is close up the wound. I don't have the resources to do anything else for her, right now. We need to get her to a hospital before I try anything ambitious."

"What about if I go out there and…" I hesitated, swallowing around the rebellion of my stomach. The image of it would remain burned into my brain for the rest of my life. "And get her…get her arm."

"No," she said firmly.

"Can you reattach it?"

"No," she repeated.

"Even if I —"

"I can't!" Amy said impatiently. "You saw what happened out there, Taylor! There's not enough _left_ of her arm! I work with biomass, I heal by converting biological matter from one shape to another! I can't just _magic_ _up_ extra flesh when I need it, I have to have something to work with!"

She couldn't? But even the meanest of healers in my repertoire were able to —

The idea struck me like a physical blow. I turned to her and said, "I can."

"What?" she snapped.

"I can do it," I repeated. "Heal her. Without extra biomass. I can do that."

She gave me an inscrutable look, like she wasn't quite sure she could believe me. I couldn't say I blamed her — she was a professional healer, or as close as, and when you heard about mystical heroes, the first thing to come to mind was a warrior, not a medic. You thought magic swords and monsters and knights in shining armor. Not witches who could restore youth or heal grievous wounds.

That didn't mean I couldn't do it.

"I can do it," I repeated.

Amy pursed her lips, then looked back down at Vista. For a long moment, she hesitated, obviously warring with herself over whether or not I could really do it. Then, "I'm going to keep her stable, but there's only so long I can hold her blood where it is before complications start to show up. You're going to have to work fast." She pinned me with a hard stare. "Are you sure you can do that?"

"Amy, no!" Victoria hissed. "She's a _murderer_!"

Amy ignored her and repeated, "Are you _sure_?"

I didn't give her a verbal answer. Instead, I closed my eyes briefly, reaching into and through myself and out into the vast halls of legend. There were several heroes capable of doing what I needed, including the likes of Florence Nightingale, but there was only one with whom I'd forged a deep and abiding connection, only one who I was comfortable enough with to use her to save Vista.

"Set. Install."

In a flash, I became the Witch of Colchis, and the knowledge of her healing magic opened up before me like a book. Spells for increasing fertility, spells for lifting mental afflictions, spells for breaking curses, spells to enhance physical strength, and most importantly, spells for undoing wounds of the flesh.

I stepped forward and Amy stepped around to the other end of the table, her hand remaining in place. Then, I reached out to Vista, to the mangled flesh where her arm had been torn from her body, and I spoke the words that tamed the power of the gods.

"Ἀσκληπιός Ἀκεσώ Αἰθήρηα."

Vista's body began to glow, emitting a bright, blue light that radiated off of her. It gathered and condensed at the sight of the wound, filling in the rips and tears in her flesh and leaving unblemished skin in its wake, and then it started to move, growing out and long. It was like watching a puzzle being put together — as the shining motes started to form a cohesive shape, the glow flaked away one fragment at a time and evaporated, and in its place was skin and bone and muscle.

"Holey sheets," breathed Clockblocker.

"Oh my god," muttered what must have been Glory Girl.

What we were witnessing was a miracle, the divine power to restore wounds to an undamaged state. It was the authority permitting the reversal of injury, the revocation of harm committed upon the body, a magic of such perfection and utility that it could even be mistaken for time travel. The only thing which it could not heal was death.

Such was the power of Medea's spells. Such was the power of the woman that _Jason_ had discarded.

It took only a handful of seconds for my spell to restore Vista's arm, and when the glow faded and I was done, a perfectly normal arm with perfectly normal skin and a perfectly normal hand was attached again to Vista's shoulder. It was not atrophied or flabby from disuse, there was no discoloration to show where her natural body ended and her restored arm began, and there was no scar anywhere on it. It was, for all intents and purposes, identical to the arm that had been blown off.

Groggily, Vista tried to lift herself up off of the table, wobbled, and failed. Her bare fingers — I had restored her arm, not her clothing — wiggled and twitched feebly, and she stared at her shoulder with half-lidded, barely-awake eyes. Several long seconds passed.

Then, she looked up at me, eyelids fluttering as she struggled against sleep, and slurring drowsily, said, "This doesn't change anything."

And without another word, her entire body went limp and her head fell back and she was out cold.

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

 **The best is yet to come.**

 **Poor Vista.**

 **It's _Worm_ , so naturally, someone had to lose an arm at some point. Vista just had the bad luck of being the one chosen for that particular honor.**

 **Technically, this chapter only went through one major revision, but that's more than chapters usually go through, and it took me something like three weeks to get it to cooperate. It was very frustrating.**

 **So, I'm not going to fall into the trap of saying 5.6 is going to be _so_ much easier.**

 **As always, read, review, and enjoy.**

 **And for early access to chapters and bonus content:**

 **p a treon . com (slash) James_D_Fawkes**


	41. Sunder 5-6

**Sunder 5.6**

What a mess.

I sighed and let my head fall into my hands.

What a _fucking_ mess.

Vista, Glory Girl, Clockblocker… What I could only assume was one of _Coil's_ henchmen… Vista losing an _arm_ … Just…

I breathed out long and low through my nose, pressing the heels of my palms to my eyes as my glasses shifted up my forehead.

 _Vista_ had apparently been eavesdropping on my conversation with Armsmaster after the Bakuda fiasco, and somehow or another, she'd gotten it into her head that I was a cold-blooded murderer who had killed one of her fellow Wards over petty _bullying_. How she'd missed the important parts, the context, the _attempted murder_ … Had she _not_ been listening _at all_ , or had she just conveniently dismissed some of the details?

I had no idea. Hell, I hadn't even known she'd _been_ there, that night, so for all I knew, she showed up too late or left too early or any combination thereof.

I wasn't going to hold a grudge. I _wasn't_. I'd already decided that. I wasn't going to hold it against her, because she just didn't _know_. I was a better person than that.

Victoria, on the other hand…

I grunted.

And then, there was Victoria, who was making it very hard to be the better person. She seemed _determined_ to find me at fault, like just because we'd fought in the bank, I _had_ to be a bad guy, _had_ to be the scum of the Earth, _had_ to be every horrible thing parents warned their children about. She seemed absolutely set on seeing the worst in me just because she didn't _like_ me, and I… I had no idea what to do with that.

Should I hate her? That was the easy thing, wasn't it. She was certainly doing her level best to make me hate her, and people had become mortal enemies for far less than a shattered arm or an attempt at an illegal arrest.

Except…doing the easy thing wasn't what heroes did, was it? Being a hero meant doing the hard thing, doing what was right rather than what was easy — and even more than that, I wasn't about to let _anyone_ force me into doing _anything_ , least of all a teenage girl caught up in her own self-righteousness.

As for Coil…

I grimaced.

Yeah, that was where that determination immediately got tested, wasn't it? If that sniper even _was_ one of Coil's, but I couldn't think of anyone else who'd send a _sniper_ after me out of costume, let alone with two Wards and the youngest members of New Wave right next to me. Admittedly, I wasn't an _expert_ on the local villains, but of the usual groups, the Empire had no immediate cause to go after me and the ABB was, to the best of my knowledge, still trying to piece itself back together after losing all three of their capes. The Merchants, such as they were, probably didn't give enough of a damn to try and get rid of me, either.

That only left Coil, of the villains I knew. Coil, who had the scruples of a Bond villain and twice the ego. Who was perfectly willing to use blackmail or murder to get his way. Coil, whose conscript I was helping escape and whose power mine apparently messed with.

I let out another long breath through my nose.

Except that wasn't exactly true, either, was it?

Sure, in the vaguest of terms, according to the letter of my geis, I _was_ helping Lisa escape Coil. I was arming her with techniques that would let her outrun his henchmen and dodge deadly blows from any capes he might send after her, I'd granted her access to my castle as a sanctuary, and I'd even given her an amulet that would protect her from just about any kind of conventional ordnance he tried to throw at her. By all means, I was handing her the tools she needed to get out from under his thumb.

But even if that was enough to satisfy the terms of my geis, it wasn't _actually_ helping her escape. It wasn't handling the issue itself, it wasn't confronting him and forcing him to let her go. It was just my passive-aggressive bullshit to show Lisa that I still wasn't happy with that stunt she'd pulled, that even if we'd sworn that geis together and made that contract, I still hadn't forgiven her, yet.

My geis was to help her escape. It wasn't to handle her problem _for_ her.

Except…that wasn't really fair, was it? That was the letter of the oath, but not the spirit of it. If I wanted to be a true friend, if I wanted to be a true _hero_ , this passive-aggressive stuff and only helping her help herself wasn't the way I should go about it. Wasn't the way I _could_ go about it, anymore.

Even if I had managed to convince myself to double down and keep going this way, Coil had just taken that option away from me.

I sighed again and looked up and across the street. The abandoned restaurant where I had healed Vista, where we had bunkered down and waited for an attack that never came, had been sectioned off and was now swarming with PRT agents. The splotch of road painted red with Vista's blood had been surrounded with bright yellow police tape, the puddle outlined with white chalk.

Off to one side, Victoria Dallon, somewhat shaken but somehow as pristine and unmarked as she'd been when she arrived, without even a drop of blood on her costume, was talking to a figure in armor that looked like a cross between futuristic power armor and a set of medieval plate. Gallant, it had to be. Kid Win, to my knowledge, didn't have a full face helm and had red and gold as his color theme.

Further along, Amy was talking to the PRT medics who had loaded Vista into the back of one of their vans, making gestures with her hands that told me she was laying out everything that had happened to Vista's body and what had been done — and how those treatments affected her — to treat her wound.

I watched, unsure of how to feel, as one agent reached down with a pair of tweezers and picked up the deformed disk that had been the bullet that hit me, then dropped it into an evidence bag.

That was the bullet someone had tried to kill me with. I knew next to nothing about guns and calibers and rifling or whatever, so I had no idea how big a standard rifle bullet was supposed to be, but…wasn't that a little too big? If that had _actually_ hurt me, if I hadn't had my amulet to protect me, what would something that big have done to my body?

The image of Vista's arm exploding, throwing torrents of blood all over as everything below her shoulder disappeared in a spray of gore, rose back up in my head, and my stomach churned again.

Would I even have survived long enough for Amy to heal me? If I had, would she even have been able to?

No, I thought, Coil had taken the choice away from me. Whether I would've kept going as I was, giving Lisa only enough to help herself escape, or if I would've realized what I was doing and gotten more involved, it was immaterial, now. Coil had just tried to have me killed, had taken his first offensive action against me. Leaving him be was no longer an option.

 _Just like Lisa said it would be_ , whispered a thought in the back of my head.

And she had, hadn't she, back during the bank? She'd said that Coil would inevitably come after me, because the city he envisioned had no room for heroes or villains that didn't, in some way, answer to him. If you weren't on his payroll when he took over, you'd either be driven out of town or put in the ground.

And he'd just tried to put me in the ground. Like Lisa had said he would, he'd just _made_ himself my problem.

How was I going to handle him? I wasn't sure, yet. I had a couple of half-formed ideas, but it wasn't going to be as simple as "go to his base, fuck up his day." If it was that easy, Lisa probably could have hired a mercenary group like Faultline and her team to take him out ages ago.

"Miss Hebert."

I jerked out of my thoughts and blinked up into the visored face of the Brockton Bay Protectorate's premiere hero, Armsmaster. A rather severe frown marred his bearded mouth.

"Armsmaster."

"You're uninjured?" he asked.

I gave him a sardonic smile. "Not a scratch."

How much hand had he had in today's events? I didn't want to believe it was all that much, if any. Consistently, he'd been kind and generous to me, fair to a degree that I hadn't seen in authority figures throughout my entire time at Winslow. He'd given no reason to doubt him, personally, even though the PRT and the Protectorate were at least tangentially responsible for a lot of the things that had gone wrong for me the past year and a half.

"Good," he grunted. "For the record, I didn't like this idea any better than you do."

I frowned up at him. "You didn't?"

Then why'd you go through with it, I wanted to ask. But I didn't need to be a high level Thinker like Lisa to know it wasn't that simple. He might have been the head of the local Protectorate, but it was a government organization with national reach, spanning the entirety of the country. Ultimately, _he_ had someone he had to answer to, too. A person higher on the food chain.

And, I realized, they might not be as understanding about what had happened to Sophia as he was.

"No," he said with a grimace. "Neither did Director Piggot. Too risky, too many things that could go wrong, too much chance of alienating you. We were…overruled by the Chief Director. She thought it provided an opportunity both to teach Vista a lesson and to get a better grasp on your personality. We were told to assign Clockblocker to prevent loss of life on either side."

In other words, she, whoever this Chief Director was, wanted to see if I would try to kill a second Ward, because apparently, the rest of my track record of specifically _avoiding_ lethal force somehow accounted for nothing. Right. Nevermind that I'd defeated Bakuda and Lung without killing them, had specifically admitted to _holding back_ enough to keep from going too far, it was the psychopath who had thrown herself against my home defenses and tried to _kill_ me that mattered more in judging my personality.

With all of that in mind, though…

"Should you be telling me this?"

Because it didn't sound like something a government official should be telling a private citizen. Or whatever I counted as when I was Apocrypha. What exactly _were_ independent heroes, in terms of laws and legal stuff? Lisa might know, but I didn't have the first clue.

Armsmaster pursed his lips and took a second to answer.

"Not strictly speaking, no," he admitted. "However, in the interest of maintaining a cordial relationship, I decided that it would be better served to be as up front as possible about this situation rather than attempting subterfuge. Director Piggot would likely agree with me," he added.

"I see," I said, for lack of anything better.

I still didn't know much about this 'Director Piggot,' but what little I'd heard… Tough, but fair? Admittedly, all I had to go on was a few things Armsmaster had said and Clockblocker's formal apology.

I didn't know, though, what else you could be but tough as nails if you were in charge of the Brockton Bay PRT. This was home, but because it was home, I could say without any reservation that it was a hellhole, so you had to be made of pretty stern stuff to lead the charge against the likes of the E88 and ABB.

"Thank you, as well," Armsmaster said bluntly.

I blinked.

"For?"

"For healing Vista," he clarified.

"Oh." I shifted a little uncomfortably. "Well, what else was I going to do? I'm a hero, so I wasn't about to let her just suffer like that."

I thought I saw a brief smile flicker across his face. "Indeed." But if it did, it was gone too quickly to be sure I'd seen anything at all. "Now. I need to take your witness statement. Describe what happened, start at the beginning."

Funny, how all of this had actually started with a witness statement two weeks ago.

I took a deep breath, gathered my thoughts. "Well," I began, "I guess it started when I was walking Amy — uh, that's Amy Dallon — when I was walking with her to the bus stop…"

I told him what I remembered happening as best as I could. Some of it felt like a blur, like it had happened too fast for me to remember all of the details, but I tried to be as clear and truthful as possible. Walking to the bus stop with Amy. Realizing we'd overshot our usual route, somehow. Vista, Glory Girl, and Clockblocker showing up. The argument with them, the accusations — I couldn't remember the exact words, but I tried to get the general tone right, at least. Clockblocker freezing both Glory Girl and Vista's skirt.

I faltered a little when it came time to describe Vista losing her arm — blood, there'd been so much blood, and how _agonized_ she'd sounded — but somehow, I managed to get through it and all the way to the end.

"…and then we took cover in the restaurant until you showed up," I finished.

He hummed. "Two bullets?"

"What?"

"Two shots were fired?" he clarified.

"Oh." I nodded. "Yeah. The first hit Vista, took off her arm. The second… The second hit me."

Without thinking, I reached up to the spot on my chest, and a phantom sensation of the impact tingled along my skin — a slight but sudden pressure, like someone poking me with a finger. In spite of how gentle the feeling had been, it had still been enough to push me back a step.

He frowned. "And yet, you're uninjured."

"Yeah." I hesitated. How much should I tell him? How much _could_ I tell him? Lisa had told me that Coil had his fingers in the PRT, that he had moles and spies, which meant that anything I told Armsmaster that got put down in some file somewhere would be open to him finding it.

"I, uh… Can I say something? Unofficially?"

But I trusted Armsmaster. He hadn't done wrong by me, yet.

He frowned and tilted his head for a moment, then gave me a short, clipped nod. "Go ahead."

"I think…both of those shots were meant for me."

It was something I had had a lot of time to think about, while we were huddled in the restaurant, prepared for a shootout. Why Vista? What could have been gained by shooting — killing, or at least maiming, if Amy and I hadn't been there — a Ward in broad daylight? What could she have done that warranted such an extreme application of deadly force, such that an inch or two in one direction would have…have _disemboweled_ her?

Nothing that I could think of. Nothing that would put her on _Coil's_ bad side, anyway.

Except…she'd been basically right across from me, and while I wasn't an expert on bullet trajectories (although some of my archer types might have known better), it seemed reasonable to me that the bubble of warped space we'd been inside of could easily have thrown off even an expert marksman.

And the second shot? The second shot that had come just seconds after that bubble popped? That one had been aimed at _me_.

Armsmaster frowned. "Explain."

"I think… I think this was Coil."

He grunted. "Coil?"

I bit my lip, chewing on it uncertainly for several seconds.

"I… I have a friend," I began haltingly. "She's a…a pretty high level Thinker. He forced her, at…at gunpoint, to work for him. Conscripted her. She told me that my power…my power apparently messes with his."

"You're certain?" he asked gravely. "You're _sure_ she said he has a power?"

"She isn't sure of all of the specifics, but yes," I told him. "A Thinker power of some kind. Precognition, maybe."

"That would make sense," he muttered to himself. "Trumps and other Thinkers _are_ sometimes known to affect the performance of a Thinker power, particularly precognition."

He murmured something else I didn't catch, then turned his attention back to me. "Continue."

"One of the things she made sure to impress upon me was how dangerous he is," I said. "Amoral. Ruthless. A Bond villain is how she described him. If you don't factor into his plans, he'll _remove_ you."

Armsmaster's mouth pulled into a grim line.

"And because your power skews the effectiveness of his…"

"I think both shots were meant for me," I concluded. "The first one just missed. Something to do with Vista's power, probably. The second one didn't."

He looked me over again. "And yet, you're unharmed."

"I…" I hesitated. "Can I…keep _how_ a secret?"

"Why?"

"Li — _my friend_ says that…that he has _spies_ in the PRT," I said. "Moles. Anything that gets put on an official report —"

"Will wind up in his hands," Armsmaster concluded gravely. He grunted and did not look at all happy. To himself, it seemed, he muttered, "We'll have to upgrade security protocols."

For a long moment, he worked his jaw. At length, he told me, "I'll keep this information out of the official report. The only one I'll inform is Director Piggot."

I breathed a short sigh. "Thank you."

He nodded brusquely. "Apocrypha," he said, "I'm glad that you're okay."

And having said so, he turned and walked away, just like that, nodding to the figure who approached slowly, as though he'd been waiting for us to finish talking.

"Uh, hey…" said Clockblocker awkwardly.

"Hi…?" I replied uncertainly.

"So…um…I'm sorry…about today," he told me slowly. "It, uh, wasn't…exactly my idea, you know? And, well, if it'd been up to _me_ , this whole…crazy plan wouldn't've happened. Because the whole thing was stupid. Stupidly stupid. Stupid squared."

That… That was… How…

"What?"

How did he…?

"I tried to warn you, earlier," he went on. "But, uh… Heh. Guess I'm…not cut out for this spy stuff, you know? That whole double-talk thing you see in the movies. It's harder than it looks, and I screwed it up pretty bad. Just as well, I guess. Who ever heard of a redheaded James Bond?"

No way. _Seriously_?

"You're… _Dennis_?" I squeaked.

"Shh!" One finger lifted to where his mouth should have been. Then, he cast a quick glance around and lifted the mask away to reveal the familiar face of a boy with a shock of red hair and brilliant blue eyes. "At milady's service," he whispered with a wink and a grin.

A moment later, the mask was shifted back into place.

I… what? I had…no idea how I was supposed to react to that. Dennis was Clockblocker? Dennis was a _cape_? In what world…?

Something Amy had said before clicked into place in the back of my head.

"Wait," I said. "Amy said…said that you're one of Dean's _friends_. Does that mean that Dean's…?"

It was possible, wasn't it? There were three other boys in the Wards — Kid Win, Gallant, and Aegis — and any one of them could correspond to the blond pretty boy I had seen Victoria spending so much time with at lunch.

"Ask me no questions and I'll tell you no lies," Denn — _Clockblocker_ said, one hand raised. I could almost hear the smile in his voice. "But, uh, officially? Don't go looking. And if you _do_ figure it out, keep it to yourself?"

The unwritten rules. Don't go looking for a cape's secret identity, don't go trying to use it against him. Keep family out of it.

"Right," I said. "Right, yeah. Sorry. I didn't mean to…"

"No harm done," he assured me. "Just, uh, the PRT gets kinda titchy on the subject of who the Wards are under the mask, you know? We don't want to give them a reason to pull out the scariest thing in their arsenal, so…hear no evil, right?"

My brow furrowed. "Scariest…?"

"Lawyers," he replied sagely. "They carry the most frightening of all weapons: NDAs."

I couldn't help myself. I snorted, and a short laugh escaped my lips.

"Ah, there we go," said Clockblocker. "So, the pretty lady can smile, after all. I'll have to practice my best jokes for next time."

I felt heat flood my cheeks and had to look away. I hoped he hadn't seen.

"Anyway. Where was I? Oh, right, yeah." He cleared his throat. "Yeah. I tried to warn you today at lunch, but that obviously didn't go too good, huh?"

"No," I mumbled. "No, it didn't."

"And, uh, yeah, uh…" He trailed off awkwardly. Sighed. "I _am_ sorry. I wasn't… I didn't know how to do it without outing myself, so I probably just came across as being weird and stupid. I guess that was kinda pointless, since I wound up outing myself _anyway_ …"

For a moment, there was silence. Then, at length…

"Look. I know today was really screwed up and this whole thing was a mess," he began, "and you totally have every reason to be upset and every reason to hate her guts, but…please don't think too badly of Vista. Even if none of us really _liked_ Shadow Stalker, it's…it's not easy, losing a teammate, you know?"

I didn't. I didn't know anything about losing someone like that, a coworker you didn't like but someone who was part of your _team_. I had no idea what that was like at all, although a few of my heroes might, if I went looking.

But I _did_ know what it was like to lose someone. To lose someone you cared about. The hole they left when they were gone, the way you felt so _lost_ in the aftermath. Like someone had taken away your rudder and left you to drift in an empty boat.

"And Vista… Vista took it the hardest," he went on. "And yeah, I'm not saying Shadow Stalker wasn't a…a bitch or that you're a horrible person if you don't miss her in the slightest, but…"

"Yeah," I said quietly. "I get it."

I looked up at him. "You know the whole story, right?"

I heard something from him that might have been a sigh. "Yeah. All the sordid details."

"Do you blame me?"

"…No," he replied. "But I think that's why this whole… _this_ , happened. We weren't told anything about her death, and Vista… I guess she just wanted someone to blame. Someone she could be angry at. Without any outlet or some kind of official word from the bigwigs…"

"I made the best target," I concluded.

"Only better one would've been wearing a bullseye."

I felt my lips twitch against my will, but I'd schooled my expression by the time I offered him an unimpressed look.

"Ouch," he said. "Tough crowd. I'll have to turn in my funny man card if I can't get another laugh out of you."

…I liked Dennis, I decided right then. He just had this…I didn't know how to describe it. Aura? Presence? If Armsmaster was noble and heroic, the kind of stoic figure that stood strong against the dark, then Dennis was personable and down to earth. Easy to talk to. The kind of guy who could make you feel better with a joke or two, even if you were about to walk to certain death.

"I don't. Blame her, that is," I clarified. "I mean, it'd be easy to. Really easy. After Sophia… Painting the rest of you the same would be so very _easy_. But I won't, because that's not right. That's not what a _hero_ does. Being a hero means doing what's right, always, even when, _especially_ when it's hard. So I don't blame her. I don't blame you. I'm not _happy_ about it, but… She doesn't know." I looked at him. " _You_ didn't know. Sophia's sins are her own. And I'm not about to start hating people because they don't realize the extent of them."

He was quiet for a moment, then he shook his head and laughed. "Oh man," he said. "You're making us look bad, you know?"

I wasn't sure how to respond to that.

"I…sorry?"

"For what?" he asked. "Hell, there's probably a few heroes in the _Protectorate_ who could take a lesson or two from you. Man, they could hire you as a motivational speaker."

I felt my cheeks start to burn, because that _was_ pretty flattering. I didn't know if it was exactly _true_ , but it was definitely flattering.

He shook his head again. "Alright. I hate to cut and run, but Miss P — uh, _Director_ Piggot is gonna want to hear my report. I'll see you on Monday?"

"Monday?" I asked bewilderedly.

"At school," he clarified. "You know. In my civvies?"

"Oh," I said. "Right. Yeah. School. Because we both go to Arcadia."

 _Shut up while you're ahead, Taylor._

"Later!" he said with a wave, and as I lifted my own hand, he turned and left.

So. Dennis was Clockblocker, huh? Couldn't say I saw _that_ coming. But it _did_ make some sense, I supposed. That nonsense from lunchtime certainly made a lot more sense, now. The strange things he'd said, the focus on my cape ID and the rumors surrounding it… Yeah, I could see how some of it could be taken as a warning of what Vista would try to do, in hindsight.

Only in hindsight, though. Even if I'd known from the beginning that he was Clockblocker, I didn't think I'd have had any easier a time figuring out what he'd been trying to tell me. As great a guy as he seemed to be and no matter how much I liked him, Dennis definitely wasn't that good at the spy stuff and the subterfuge, and the less said about his attempts at clever doubletalk, the better.

He was right, he'd have made a _terrible_ James Bond.

I wasn't sure it would've made a difference if I _had_ known. What would I have done, called up Armsmaster and demanded he call the whole thing off? Like that would have worked. No matter how powerful I was or what I'd done so far, I was still a newbie in terms of heroing, and not only was Armsmaster a veteran, he was also under no obligation to listen to me. It wasn't like I was his boss or whatever. It would've been perfectly within his rights to tell me to fuck off.

And I couldn't have come ahead or planned something to deal with things, either. A lot of the things my casters could've done to deal with Vista's power required setup — usually on the order of hours or days, which wouldn't have been at all feasible while I was sitting in a classroom — and if I'd just popped out Medea and used a spell to hold them in place, well, that had its own problems — namely, Amy, who probably wouldn't have been very amused watching me trap her sister and two Wards in place with a spell.

By chance, at that moment, I looked up and across the road, and at the same time, Amy turned around and looked in my direction. Our eyes met, something passed between us, and a premonition of cold dread dropped into my stomach like a stone.

She turned back to the person she was speaking to, but her eyes never left mine, and after a parting comment to the technician or EMT or whatever he was, she turned in my direction again and started over.

"You will be visited by three ghosts," I murmured to myself, struck by a sudden humor.

Did that make me Scrooge? Because I didn't think that really fit.

At the last few feet, she stopped and hesitated for a moment. I watched her bite her bottom lip, watcher her brow furrow and her eyes narrow, as my heart fluttered nervously in my chest.

Would she hate me, once she knew? Lisa had told me that I had the right to defend myself, Armsmaster had said the PRT decided it was self-defense, and I only felt guilty that I didn't feel guilty for what had happened to Sophia. As I'd told Detective Chase, there were only so many ways to escalate from attempted murder, and I had no pity in my heart for the grim fate of the girl who had put me in _the Locker_.

But would Amy be as understanding?

I wanted to believe she would be. I wanted to believe that the last week hadn't just been me deluding myself that I could have a friendship that didn't suffer some kind of break or betrayal and didn't have an ulterior motive. I wanted to believe that this wouldn't end in heartbreak.

I wanted to believe it, but some part of me, the jaded little girl who had hardened her heart throughout nearly two years of misery, just couldn't.

"Taylor," Amy said as she came upon me.

"Amy," I replied quietly.

She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and let it out shakily.

"We… We need to talk," she told me.

"Yeah," I murmured. "Yeah, I guess we do."

I stood up and followed her as she led me further down the street, away from the agents and paramedics still going over the scene and out of earshot. When she'd judged we were far enough, she turned back around to face me.

"Is it true?" she asked me tremulously.

"Which part?"

"Damn it, Taylor, this isn't a game!" she snapped. "They — she — you were accused of murdering a…a _Ward_! And you _didn't deny it_!"

She gestured wildly back down the road, towards where the puddle of Vista's blood even now was being scrubbed off of the asphalt.

"You can't just flippantly ask me — _and why aren't you screaming at me about how wrong I am_?!"

"Because, in a way, it's true," I told her quietly.

Her face fell and she looked as though the world had just dropped out from under her, and for a moment, it seemed like she'd even forgotten to breathe. It was the face of a girl who had just had her heart broken and didn't know what to do.

In a way, it _was_ true. Sure, it was Sophia's own fault for charging recklessly through my yard, apparently so intent on…on _killing_ me that she'd managed to make it past my fear ward, and I hadn't actually swung the blade that cut her in half or given the order to the specific Dragon Tooth Warrior who _did_ cut her in half. But they were my defenses. I had set them up with lethal capabilities, knowing that someone might in fact be dedicated enough to my death to brush off the utter certainty that they would be walking to their own doom.

I just hadn't expected that someone to be Sophia Hess, rather than Hookwolf or Krieg.

So, by proxy, yes, I _had_ killed Sophia. There was just a lot of context missing by condensing it down to something that simple.

Context that Amy didn't have, I knew, as I watched the utter despair on her face begin to harden into cold anger. Context that Vista hadn't had.

Context that only _I_ could give her. Context that I _had_ to give her, if I wanted to salvage this friendship.

I tore my eyes away from Amy's face, working my jaw anxiously as I tried to come up with something.

I hadn't wanted to have this conversation so soon. It was… It was a deep trauma, and although Lisa had managed to convince me to go that far for her, I'd been burned, and I hadn't wanted to let Amy that deep into my heart, just yet. I hadn't wanted to _rush_ it, the way things had gone with Lisa.

But there was nothing else I could do. Nothing except let Amy hate me and walk out of my life.

"So, that's it, then? Vista was right? You _murdered_ a Ward, and the PRT is letting you get away with it because you're a powerful Trump?"

"No," I said, making my decision. "It's not that simple. There's a lot of details — _context_ that Vista was missing."

" _Context_?" Amy spat. "There's _context_ that makes murder —"

"Do you remember your Trigger Event?" I asked her, cutting her off. Her mouth snapped shut and her lips thinned into a line. I didn't need for her to say it to know the answer. "Of course you do. _Every_ cape remembers. It's not something you can forget, is it?"

"What does _that_ have to do with anything?"

"The girl Vista accused me of murdering is Sophia Hess," I said, "and she caused my Trigger Event."

Her mouth fell open. "What?"

"She was a thug and a bully," I went on, "and she spent the last year and a half doing her level best to make my life a living _hell_. Her, her two friends, and their posse of leeches have spent every day doing whatever it took to make me miserable. Every mean-spirited prank you can think of, I've probably been on the other end of it."

Amy's lips pulled tight. "And so you killed her for it?"

"No," I denied woodenly, " _she_ tried to kill _me_."

It threw her for another loop, and her eyebrows shot up into her hairline. "What?" she repeated.

"There was an incident in January," I told her. "First day back from Christmas break. I opened my locker to find it stuffed full with used pads and tampons, smelling like it'd been sitting in there to fester for _months_. The smell of it was so bad, I lost my breakfast right then and there. Just threw everything up right into the mess."

Amy looked faintly green.

"I hadn't even got my wits back about me before someone grabbed me from behind and shoved me in with the muck and the grime and my own vomit," I continued. "Had to be Sophia. None of the others were brave enough or strong enough to grab me and shove me in. She locked my door behind me, left me in there with the garbage to rot. I begged them to let me out, and. She. _Laughed_."

I took in a breath to push back the memories that tried to crowd their way forward.

"I was left in there for three hours. It felt like days. I was in the hospital afterwards for a week, and it wasn't until February that I was back in school. And at the end of the day, _no one was punished_."

"So, you punished her instead?" Amy asked tremulously.

It _had_ been tempting. In my darkest moments, I'd considered it. I'd seriously thought about it. If no one was going to give me justice, then why _shouldn't_ I just take it? That was what had been going through my head for a large portion of January.

In the end, though…

"…No," I said. "No, I went back to being their punching bag, because I wasn't about to use my powers on them and let them make _me_ the criminal. And in the meantime, I made preparations to make my debut as a hero. I researched the myths and legends behind my heroes. I practiced with my power in an abandoned warehouse. Most importantly, I set up protections around my house, so that any enemies I made as a hero who were looking to get back at me or my dad _wouldn't_ get that chance."

She worked her jaw, confused. "So? How'd you kill her, then? _Why_?"

"I told you," I said, " _she_ tried to kill _me_."

Amy's brow furrowed again, bewildered, but after a moment, comprehension dawned on her face. "Wait. You don't mean…"

"Do you remember the Dragon's Teeth, Amy?" I asked instead. "In the legend of Medea and Jason?"

"…No," she replied after a moment, "can't say that I do."

"The legend has it that Medea sowed the ground with the teeth of a dragon, and from those teeth sprouted warriors, all fully armed and twice as strong as any ordinary man," I explained. "So, I sowed my yard with Medea's Dragon's Teeth and set them as my second line of defense, to trigger if anyone was so determined to hurt me that they made it past the first. It was _supposed_ to be for hardened killers like Hookwolf, but Sophia Hess did her damnedest over the last two years to prove that she was a worse human being than I ever expected."

"And she tried to kill you," Amy concluded. "But… _why_? What did you do to make her _hate_ you _that_ much?"

My lips quirked into a mirthless half-smile. "I talked back to her."

"What?" Amy asked incredulously.

"Three weeks ago, I beat Lung, and the next day, I was feeling _really_ good about myself. Like I could rise above everything they threw at me and nothing they said could ever bring me down. So, when Sophia and her friends started in on me that day, I fought back. I told her that she'd never amount to anything other than a burger flipper at Fugly Bob's or a street-walker making money on her back."

Amy snorted, then waited a moment for me to continue. After a few seconds, she asked, "Wait, that's it? _That's_ what she was willing to _kill_ you over?"

"She tried in January just for _kicks_ ," I reminded her. "Because she thought it would be _fun_. After I showed her up in front of her friends? It would've been more surprising if she _didn't_ try something."

"But _murder_?"

I met her eyes and gave her another mirthless smile. "Like I said, Amy. Sophia Hess has spent the last two years doing her level best to prove that she's a worse human being than I ever thought she was."

She bit her lip again and chewed on it for a few seconds. "Does the PRT know? The Protectorate?"

"The broad strokes," I answered. "They never really asked _exactly_ how Sophia died, so I never really told them. They know what she did, though, they know the important parts. Armsmaster himself told me that the PRT had filed it as self-defense and that there were no plans to formally charge me with anything."

"And Vista…"

"The conversation Vista overheard was just that: Armsmaster telling me I wasn't being charged with murder. How much of it she missed, what parts she didn't hear or misheard, I don't know. But it's obvious she didn't hear _everything_."

I had a few vague ideas, but… Really, there was no way of knowing exactly what she had and hadn't overheard.

"So this, all of _this_ …" She gestured down the street behind me, to the spot where the confrontation had happened and Vista had lost her arm. "It was all over a misunderstanding?"

I gave a helpless shrug, because at the end of the day, that was basically it, and Amy fell into silent contemplation, frowning thoughtfully.

After a few seconds, I asked, "So…what now?"

"Now?" She sighed. "Now, I get to go home and probably have another argument with Vicky about all of this, maybe answer some hard questions from Carol, and sit through the most awkward dinner _imaginable_. And it's the weekend, too, so the next forty-eight hours are gonna be filled with _so much bullshit_ …"

A wave of relief washed through me. She believed me. I hadn't just lost another friend.

"You could…have dinner with me," I suggested.

Amy blinked, thrown. "What?"

"Dad's been after me to bring my, uh, new friends over for dinner, so he can meet them," I explained. "You and Lisa, I mean. So… I mean, if you want to, you can have dinner at my house."

Understanding dawned on her face. "Oh. _Oh_. No, I thought you meant…"

I frowned. "Thought I meant what?"

Splotches of red rose in her cheeks, but she shook her head and said, "Nevermind. Um, sure, yeah. If you think your dad will be okay with it, I mean."

I smiled. "Great."

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

 **Holy aftermath, Batman!**

 **That's what this chapter is, mainly. Aftermath, and lots of it.**

 **And ship teasing. Some ship teasing, too. If you've got your shipping goggles on, you should see two ships being teased, here.**

 **We're approaching the end of the arc, now. Just two more chapters to go before the one week break, and then we start Arc 6: Tyranny.**

 **Mwahahaha. Arc 6 is, I think, going to wind up being my favorite.**

 **As always, read, review, and enjoy.**

 **And for early access to chapters and bonus content:**

 **p a treon . com (slash) James_D_Fawkes**


	42. Sunder 5-7

**Sunder 5.7**

It was almost six by the time I finally made it back home, with Amy in tow. Dad's old pickup was sitting in the driveway, parked and empty and the engine already long since cooled. He must've been home for at least an hour, already, maybe more if he left work earlier than usual.

I hoped he hadn't worried about me too much.

Behind me, I could almost feel Amy's head swiveling as she took in the neighborhood. When I glanced back at her, she was looking up and down the yard with a puzzled expression on her face, brow drawn and furrowed and mouth slightly open.

"Huh," she said.

"What?"

"Well, I mean, I guess I was expecting some kind of…sign or something?" she hedged. "Like maybe…something you'd miss if you didn't know it was there? Of your Dragon's Teeth, I mean."

I smiled a little.

"I'm afraid not. It would kind of defeat the point, you know, of having secret defenses if they weren't secret?"

Faints spots of red formed under her freckles.

"Well, when you put it like that… Just makes me feel kinda stupid."

When we made it to the door, I stopped, hesitated, as I realized that we may in fact have a very serious problem.

In hindsight, I really should have considered it earlier, but today had been a long and trying day.

"Is something wrong?" Amy asked.

I turned to her, worrying my bottom lip. "Um, Amy, my dad… My dad doesn't _know_."

She raised an eyebrow. "About?"

"About me," I said. "Being a cape."

Understanding dawn on her face. "Oh. _Oh_."

"Or about the thing at the bank," I added.

Both eyebrows rose. "You didn't tell him?"

"And I don't want to tell him about _this_ , about what happened today, either."

"Taylor, you could have _died_ , today," Amy protested. "Don't you think that's kind of an important thing to talk to him about?"

"Which is exactly why I don't want to tell him," I said. "He's… He's got enough on his plate as it is, and I don't want to add to it."

I'd told myself that I _would_ tell him, at some point. After things calmed down, after I wasn't jumping from Lung to the mess with Sophia to helping Lisa to dealing with Bakuda to trying to get used to going to Arcadia. When things weren't so crazy or hectic, when there was just a… a _moment_ where it felt like my life had calmed down enough that it wouldn't make things difficult for either of us to hash it all out. When I felt like it wouldn't add to the pile of problems we were facing, _then_ I would sit down with him and tell him.

It just…hadn't happened, yet. Maybe after this business with Coil was done… No, _definitely_ after this business with Coil was over and done with, I'd sit down with him and explain.

Just not right now.

"So…don't mention any of that stuff? And if he asks, we met at the Boardwalk in a…a coffee shop."

Amy looked like she had something she wanted to say about that, and she even got as far as opening her mouth to do it, but before she did, she seemed to think better of it, scowled, and instead told me, "Fine. But this isn't something you can keep from him forever, you know."

I wondered, was that experience talking, or just common sense?

"I know," I assured her. "And I _will_ tell him, once this whole thing is over with and things have calmed down. Just not now."

Amy let out a sigh through her nose, and I could tell by the expression on her face that she wasn't entirely convinced, but she chose not to make an issue out of it. "Okay. Alright. So, if he asks, we met in a coffee shop on the Boardwalk."

"During one of my morning runs," I added for good measure.

"During one of your morning runs," she echoed. "Okay. We met in a coffee shop on the Boardwalk during one of your morning runs. And then we hit it off later at Arcadia?"

Colonel Mustard in the library with a candlestick…

I nodded. "Yeah."

"Okay, then."

I turned back towards the door and took hold of the handle, hesitating a second time. I glanced back over my shoulder. "And Amy?"

"Yeah?"

"Thanks."

"Sure," she replied simply.

I twisted the doorknob, pushed open the front door, and as I stepped through, I raised my voice and called, "Dad? I'm home!"

"I'm in the kitchen making dinner!" Dad yelled back from down the hall. "Lasagna, tonight!"

I wondered, briefly, at the coincidence that he'd be making lasagna when I hadn't called to tell him Amy would be coming over — I hadn't even told him I had a cellphone, yet, come to think of it, and _that_ was its own kettle of fish — before deciding that it was probably just because it was easier and less expensive than going out to buy something else to make. Still a strange coincidence, though.

Then, a moment later, a familiar head blonde hair poked out from the living room and my brain stuttered to a halt.

A big, Cheshire grin pulled at Lisa's lips. "Welcome home."

I gaped. "Lisa?"

"Lisa?" shrieked Amy from behind me.

What the hell?

"What are _you_ doing here?"

How the _fuck_ did you even know where I _lived_?

Lisa flinched and her hand shot up to her chest, her _heart_ , and — were those _bandages_ on her hand?

What the _fuck_?

Dad chose that moment to walk out of the kitchen, drying his hands on his apron (it said, "I'm Irish," on the front, and I hadn't gotten the joke until halfway through middle school), and when he saw me, he smiled.

"Hi, Honey." He glanced for a second in Lisa's direction. "I see you've noticed our surprise guest, huh?"

I blinked at him dumbly. _What?_

"Surprise guest?"

"I found her on the front porch, exhausted, a little bruised, and skinned up pretty bad on her hands and knees." He gave her a sympathetic look, and my eyes shot to the knees of her leggings, where I could see quite a bit of gauze — some of it stained red — and large tears in the fabric. "She said someone tried to kidnap her and she fell while she was running, so she came to the only place she thought she'd feel safe."

"I didn't want to be alone," Lisa picked up, doing a very good job of looking insecure and scared. I wasn't sure how much of it was real and how much of it was put upon for Dad's sake. "And…and he knows where I live and he knows my routine and…"

An idea sputtered to life in my brain. _He_ , she said. _Someone tried to kidnap her_ , was the story she'd sold to my dad. Except what if it wasn't just a story? She hadn't mentioned any names, after all, and Lisa was plenty good enough to avoid a regular kidnapper that she probably could've done it even _without_ the training I'd given her.

But… would he really… both of us on the same _day_?

"I told her she was welcome to stay for a few days," Dad said, dragging my attention back to him. "If you don't mind sharing your room with your friend, Taylor?"

"Um…"

I looked back over at Lisa, and she mouthed something at me. I wasn't a lip-reader, so it wasn't like I could read her lips like that, but even still, it wasn't that hard to figure it out.

"Sure."

 _We need to talk_.

Dad smiled. "Great."

"Um, Taylor?" a voice said from behind me.

I startled. I'd almost forgotten she was even there.

"Oh," I bumbled, stepping out of the way. I gestured to Amy, who was still halfway through the front door. "Um, Dad, this is Amy. Amy, my Dad."

"Danny Hebert," Dad said, stepping forward to offer his hand.

Amy took it and gave it a polite shake. "Uh, Amy Dallon."

"Dallon?" Dad asked curiously. "That's, um… Hm. You're not related to Carol Dallon, by any chance, are you?"

Surprised, Amy nodded. "Um, yeah, actually. She's my mom."

She'd probably been expecting him to recognize her as Panacea, but even if he'd had the inclination, Dad didn't really have the _time_ to follow the cape scene as religiously as some of the people on PHO seemed to.

"Huh. Small world."

They let go and their hands fell back to their sides.

"Uh, how do you know her, exactly?" Amy asked.

"Oh, I've never met her, personally. But she works at the same law firm as Al…" Dad flinched, and his smile flickered and fell, "Alan Barnes. He's told me about her, a couple of times."

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Lisa twitch, and I wondered if she'd made the connection. I couldn't remember if I'd ever told her Emma's full name, but she'd made accurate conclusions on less information before, so I wouldn't be surprised if she had even if I'd never mentioned it.

"Anyway." Dad plastered a smile back on his face, but I probably wasn't the only one who could tell it didn't reach his eyes. "I've got to get back to making dinner, so I'll let you girls be, huh?"

"Uh, sure," I said. "We'll be up in my room, okay? Figure out where Lisa is gonna sleep."

"That's fine. I'll call you when dinner's ready."

"Thanks, Dad."

"No problem, Sweetheart."

Dad turned and went back into the kitchen, and I turned and addressed Amy and Lisa. "Um, so, my room is upstairs…"

Lisa grinned. "Lead on, Macduff."

Amy just pursed her lips, like she wasn't entirely happy to be in the same room as Lisa, let alone breathing the same air. She really didn't like her, did she?

I didn't really have a response or anything, so I just led them up the stairs and down the hallway to my room, where the three of us crowded into between my desk and bed. After the door clicked shut and I turned to face her, it was to find Lisa scanning the room like she was looking for something.

"Huh," she said mildly. "Did you ever do anything like soundproof this room, Taylor? Something so we have a little privacy?"

"No…?" I answered slowly. "It wasn't something I was ever really worried about, up here. But, um, as long as we're not too loud, Dad shouldn't hear us."

"Okay. That's fine."

Then, without warning, she whirled about lightning fast and whipped her hand across my cheek with an echoing _CRACK_. I staggered back a step, stunned, as my cheek stung from the impact of what was very likely a superhuman smack. My hand rose of its own accord to cradle the spot she'd hit.

I half expected to find blood.

"What the hell was _that_ for?" Amy demanded, trying to interpose herself between Lisa and me. There wasn't really the room for it, though, so she wound up kind of halfway wedged between Lisa and the corner of my desk.

Lisa ignored her.

"Why the hell did I even buy you that phone if you're not going to _fucking answer it_?" she breathed shakily, chest heaving.

She spun back around towards the window, raking a hand through her hair. "God!"

"Arcadia is surrounded by a Faraday Cage," I found myself telling her, "so I always turn my phone off before I go to school in the mornings."

Lisa let out something between a sob and a chuckle, shoulders shaking. "Of fucking course. A Faraday Cage. I-I really must be slipping, i-if I forgot about that."

I wanted to ask her, to confirm the suspicion percolating in my brain, that it was Coil who had tried to "kidnap" her, and that that was the reason why she had come here instead of hiding out at her team's lair. I wanted to ask why she hadn't gone to the castle instead, where nothing except maybe Leviathan could have gotten to her.

But the words wouldn't come, and I stood there, watching as Lisa cried quietly in front of us, back turned so that we wouldn't see her tears.

"Taylor? Everything all right, up there?" Dad called from down the stairs.

"Everything's fine, Dad!" I answered. "I just, uh, smacked my hand off of my desk!"

"Okay, then! Just making sure!"

My room returned to silence, and after another minute of no one talking, Amy finally broke it with a tentative offer of, "Um, I could…heal you, if you want. If I have your permission."

Lisa let out a hiccuping sob and sniffled. "Y-yeah, I-I think I'd like that. Just… Just gimme a sec, okay?"

She turned back around, eyes red and puffy, then, slowly, she peeled off the bandages Dad had swathed her in, and I recoiled.

"Holy fuck!" said Amy. "What'd you do, get dragged along behind a speeding car?"

The entirety of Lisa's knees and a large portion of her palms had been very badly torn up. They were ragged and red and inflamed and still bleeding sluggishly, or maybe bleeding again because she'd taken the bandages off, and they looked like someone had taken a cheese grater to them. It was all surface damage, there wasn't any sign of anything worse, but there was no way in _hell_ it didn't hurt like a bitch.

"Tripped while running away," Lisa said, offering a watery grin. "Unfortunately, the pavement is still the undefeated champ."

She winced and held out one hand. "But these really hurt, so, uh, if you could, Amy…"

Amy startled and reached out to grasp the offered hand, then stopped, seemed to think better of it, and gingerly pressed her fingertips to Lisa's forearm instead. A moment later, before my very eyes, Lisa's wounds stopped bleeding and started to shrink, giving way to perfect, healthy pink skin, like nothing had ever happened to it.

It was my first time watching Amy heal something like this. My broken arm had been largely intact, if misshapen — no bone shards jutting out and making me bleed all over the place — and the only immediately visible thing she'd done for Vista was stop her from losing all her blood. It was quite another thing entirely to see the flesh actually knit itself back together, like this.

It was…different from how Medea's spell worked. No less wondrous for the lack of a lightshow and incantations. Magic of another kind, I might have said.

When it was all over and Amy drew her hand away, Lisa let out a loud sigh and some of the tension bled from her body. "Thanks, Amy."

"Uh, sure," said Amy. "You're welcome."

She seemed like she didn't know how to feel, like she wasn't supposed to like Lisa and didn't know if sympathizing with her and healing her wounds made it wrong to keep disliking her.

Lisa plopped down on my bed, throwing out her hands and leaning back to look up at us. "Right," she said. "I'm guessing you figured out some of what happened to me?"

"Coil?" I asked.

Lisa sighed. "Yep. I was meeting Brian and Alec for… Fuck, I don't even remember what we were supposed to talk about. Anyway, I was meeting them at this coffee shop on the Boardwalk, or I was supposed to — only they never showed. And while I was sitting there, sipping my coffee, waiting for them, someone _shot_ me."

" _What_?" Amy demanded.

Lisa reached up and stuck her hand down her shirt, then pull a familiar golden amulet into view. "If it hadn't been for this," she jiggled it demonstrably, "there'd be a hole the size of a softball in the middle of my chest and I'd have died in silent agony."

My hand moved of its own accord to touch the spot where the sniper's bullet had hit me — almost exactly the same place as it would have hit Lisa. And Lisa noticed.

"Fuck." Her lips pursed. "You too, huh?"

"In the middle of an empty street," I confirmed quietly.

"Wait, what?" Amy demanded again. "Taylor, you were _shot_? And you too, Lisa? What the _fuck_?! _How_?!"

I reached into my hoodie and pulled up my own amulet. "Protective charms," I answered simply. "They stop bullets and other projectiles. I made one for myself after a gun scare at Winslow, then one for Lisa to protect her from Coil."

A complicated expression twisted her face. "That's… Seriously?"

"You've seen me restore a missing arm out of thin air," I pointed out. "I don't get why this is less belie —"

"Whoa, whoa, hold on, _what_?" interjected Lisa. "Restored a _missing arm_?"

"Vista confronted me about Shadow Stalker's death," I told her. "The sniper's first bullet took her arm off instead of hitting me."

Lisa blanched. "Fuck," she muttered, "he's even willing to risk killing a _Ward_? He's gotten _that_ desperate?"

"You're the one who knows him best, Lisa," I said. "You tell me."

She looked at me and her lips pulled taut, then she sighed. "Yeah. Okay. Yeah, you're right. So…given what I know about him, if he's going to go _this_ far to try and get rid of us, either something big happened that we ruined in one of his alternate timelines, or enough little things went wrong because of your powers screwing with his that he's gotten too impatient to be as careful as he'd like to be."

"Whoa, wait, hold on a second, here," Amy interrupted. "Alternate timelines?"

Lisa raised an eyebrow at me. "You haven't told her?"

I fidgeted a little awkwardly. "It, uh, it wasn't really something I thought she needed to be involved in?"

Amy was _Taylor's_ friend. Not _Apocrypha's_ teammate. We'd been pretty clear about that with each other, earlier.

Lisa snorted. "Well, I guess there's nothing to do about that now, huh?"

I scowled and turned to Amy. "Amy —"

"Oh no you don't," she said before I could get any farther. "You're not kicking me out _now_. You do _not_ get to tell me _half_ the fucking story and expect me to just up and _leave_."

"It's… It's kind of complicated," I tried.

"Then simplify it," she told me flatly.

I bit my lip and turned to Lisa. She shrugged. "It's your show, Chief. I already tried to explain this kind of thing to her, remember?"

"Okay." I let out a breath. "Okay. So. You know how I'm an Eidolon-style Trump?"

"Something about using the powers and equipment of mythological heroes, yes," Amy answered.

"So, um, Coil has some kind of power, too," I went on. "Lisa… Lisa said she isn't quite sure exactly how it works or what the limits are, but she has a fairly solid grasp on what it can do."

"It was always gonna be either a Shaker power or precog," Lisa added helpfully. "In hindsight, yeah, it was always more likely to be precog, but I'm fairly sure of it, now."

"Right," I said. "Right. So his power has something to do with following _alternate timelines_. He can… I guess, take different actions in each one and see the results, then choose the one he prefers."

Because thinking about it, it'd be a pretty useless power if he did the same exact thing in every timeline.

"In real time," Lisa put in again. "Or, well, I'm leaning more towards that than that he just sees ahead. If he could do _that_ , then he'd be an even more slippery bastard, and we probably wouldn't even be in as good a spot as we're currently in."

"And somehow, my power messes with his."

"It affects the accuracy of his power's simulations," Lisa clarified. "No idea about the how or the why, but there are…glitches, you could call them, mistakes in his timelines than can pretty drastically throw off the results. As you can imagine, that's something he really, _really_ doesn't like."

I shot her a frown, and she lifted her hands up in surrender. If she was going to ask me to explain, then she could let me explain, damn it.

"So, that's what the whole fiasco this afternoon was about?" Amy asked.

I chewed on my tongue, then looked back to Lisa, ceding the floor. "Basically? Yeah," she said. "He wanted to get both of us at once, so that he could have us out of his hair. Unless I miss my mark, _this_ ," she jiggled the amulet, "is not only the reason we survived, but the reason we even know he tried in the first place. _And_ the reason he went for _both_ of us. Since they were made with Taylor's powers, after all."

"I didn't… I thought we'd have a bit more time to figure out a way to handle him," I admitted. "A few weeks, a month or two… But if he's going to go this far, I guess…"

It was going to have to be sooner rather than later. As I'd thought earlier today, I couldn't afford to be passive-aggressive and let Lisa handle this on her own, not after he'd drawn me into it and nearly killed a twelve-year-old girl in the process.

"Days," Lisa affirmed grimly. "Three, maybe four, on the long end. However long it takes him to come up with another plan. Since he's failed the direct approach, the next step is probably to start using leverage to force us into the position he wants."

A jolt of terror shot through my stomach. _Dad_.

Amy's brow furrowed and her lips pulled into a tight line.

"Alright." Determination set into her face. "So, what are we going to do about him?"

I blinked at her stupidly. _What?_ "We?"

"As useful as having a healer around would be, I don't think it's a good idea to bring you onto the frontline of this thing," said Lisa. "Plus, I _really_ don't want to have to deal with your sister if you get hurt."

"He just tried to put a bullet in my…my _best friend_ ," said Amy fiercely. Something warm bloomed in my chest, and in spite of the situation, I wanted to smile. "You really think I'm gonna sit around and twiddle my thumbs while you go and try to bring his Bond lair down around his ears?"

At that moment, Dad's voice called up from downstairs.

"Girls, dinner!"

The three of us shared a look.

"We'll finish this after dinner," I said. "For now… It's been a long day and I'm hungry."

"Yeah," Amy agreed awkwardly.

Lisa nodded.

"Sounds good to me."

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

 **I kept forgetting to give this to you guys. Maybe I'm spending too much time on SV?**

 **Originally, this was all gonna be one chapter, but I got to 3.3k words, and I decided, you know what? By the time I try and fit all of the other stuff I want in the chapter into the chapter, this thing's gonna be way too big - and take me an extra day or two to write, at least.**

 **Next weekend will be the dinner. After that, the second interlude. After that...well, I originally wanted to take May off from Essence - for several reasons, not the least of which is that I wanted to do something special in celebration of Jeanne - but we'll see where things are at, then.**

 **As always, read, review, and enjoy.**

 **And for early access to chapters and bonus content:**

 **p a treon . com (slash) James_D_Fawkes**


	43. Sunder 5-8

**Sunder 5.8**

Dinner was an awkward affair.

The heavenly smell of Mom's lasagna met our noses as we made our way down the stairs, and for a moment, I could almost feel here there, again, and her smile warmed me from the inside.

"Oh my god, that smells so good!"

"Oh hell, Taylor," said Lisa, "if that lasagna is anywhere near as good as it smells, I'll never be able to eat takeout again."

My lips curled of their own accord. "It's Mom's special recipe," I told them a little wistfully.

As we stepped into the hallway, it was to find Dad in the kitchen, setting up an extra pair of folding chairs around our usual table — itself moved out and further towards the center of the room so that everyone could sit down comfortably. I was glad he'd thought ahead far enough to plan for that, because _I_ hadn't, and in hindsight, I really should've, before inviting anyone over for dinner.

Dad gave us a brief wave when he saw us, then gestured vaguely to the oven and went back to fiddling with what seemed to be a very stubborn chair. "Dinner's on the stove," he said, grunting with the effort. "Plates and silverware are on the countertop. Help yourselves. And if you'll just — ah! — gimme a minute…here…!"

We didn't move, at first.

"Need any help, Dad?"

It _was_ an old chair, after all. I didn't think it'd seen any use in over three years, and we'd had it for as long as I could remember — had taken it on camping trips when I was younger, even.

"Ah! No, no, it's — urg — it's fine, you girls go ahead and get yourselves served up — _come on, you little_ — and I'll be done in a jiffy."

I hesitated for a second longer. "If you're sure…"

Dad just waved me off, so I left him to it and moved towards the kitchen counter, with Lisa and Amy forming a line behind me in some unspoken agreement. Just as he'd said, Dad had left a stack of plates and piles of forks, knives, and spoons sitting out and waiting, so I took a plate, grabbed the spatula he'd set out, and started carving myself a piece of lasagna out of the dish.

"Ha!"

Only to nearly drop it on the floor as Dad's triumphant exclamation startled me. Lisa sniggered from behind me, and I shot her a short glare over my shoulder as I went back to getting my food — more carefully, now.

Dad had finished setting up the chairs by the time I made it back over to my usual seat, looking supremely pleased with himself, as though he had just run a marathon and placed third. Then, his stomach rumbled, and, laughing at himself, he went over to dish himself up some food.

The others joined me a couple minutes later, Dad to my left, Amy to my right, and Lisa sitting across from me. Wafts of steam rose from our plates like mist, and mine was not the only stomach to protest the wait.

"Everyone got what they need?" Dad asked, smiling the smile that had once been reserved solely for me and Emma.

A chorus of affirmatives answered.

"Okay, then. Let's eat."

The scratch of forks on plates rang out through the kitchen as the four of us carved up our meal and started to dig in.

"Oh my god," Lisa said after the first bite. "Mister H, this is delicious!"

"You think so?" Dad replied, the tips of his ears starting to turn red.

"Of course!" she turned to Amy. "Don't you think so, Amy?"

Amy flushed at being put on the spot. "Oh, um, yeah. Definitely."

"The best lasagna I've ever had," Lisa asserted.

Dad grinned, delighted. "Really? Well, I can't really take any credit. I just followed my wife's directions."

"Then she must have been an amazing cook!"

The grin started to dim. "Yeah," Dad said softly, wistfully. "Yeah, she really was."

He shook it off. "Oh, um, Lisa, your bandages! Are your hands okay?"

Amy startled. "Oh, uh, I healed them for her."

Dad blinked, nonplussed. "You healed them?" Then, an epiphany washed over his face. "Oh, oh, that's right. Dallon — that's the New Wave group, right?"

Amy nodded. "Yeah, that's us."

"So you're the one in the robe and the…the scarf, I think it was?" He frowned and his fork stopped moving on his plate. "What was it… Pan… Panacreta?"

"Panacea, yeah," she corrected him kindly. "I'm… I'm really more of a healer than a fighter."

"Well, that was nice of you, Amy," he said. "Lisa? Are you feeling better, then?"

Lisa plastered on a smile, and it was only because I knew her as well as I did that I could see it wasn't wholly genuine. "Right as rain."

A few moments passed in silence, and we continued eating. I tried to focus on the delicious lasagna Dad had gone through all this effort to make, but the butterflies fluttering about in my stomach and the worry that one of us might say something and give away the whole charade made it hard.

At length, Dad asked, "So, Amy, how was it you and Taylor met, exactly?"

"O-oh, um." I saw her glance at me out of the corner of my eyes. "We… We met at a coffee shop. On the Boadwalk. Um, during one of her morning runs."

It was only because I was sitting across from her that I saw Lisa twitch.

"Really?" Dad said, surprised. "Lisa said the same thing. Did you all meet in the same shop?"

"No," said Amy at the same time as Lisa answered, "Yes."

They looked at each other for one quiet moment, bewildered, then turned back to Dad.

"Yes," said Amy. Lisa answered, "No."

Dad blinked at them. "Uh…"

They looked at each other again. I cleared my throat.

"We, uh, I met them both in different places on different days," I tried, hoping my nervousness didn't show on my face. "Then I introduced them to each other at one coffee shop a couple weeks ago."

Dad laughed. "Oh, that makes sense. You girls had me confused, for a second, there."

I breathed a silent sigh of relief. Bullet dodged.

"So, Lisa," he began, turning his attention back to her. "Taylor tells me you have your GED? Do you plan on going to college or do you have a job of some kind?"

Lisa flashed him a smile, loaded with hidden meaning that there was no way he could have noticed.

"I _do_ have a job, actually," she told him. "The hours are weird and the tasks can be strange, but the pay is good. I guess you could call me an information and analysis specialist, although that really simplifies things…"

The rest of dinner went smoothly, compared to the handful of landmines we navigated around in the beginning. When we finished, Dad told us to leave our dishes by the sink and he'd wash them, so we piled them up, and after the customary thanks were delivered, made our way back up to my room.

The moment the door was closed, I turned back to face the two of them.

"Alright. Where did we leave off?"

"We were talking about Coil," said Amy. "We were about to start planning for how to deal with him."

Lisa jerked.

"Wait, hang on. I just remembered something." She started rummaging about in her pockets. "Before we really get into it, there was something I wanted to show you. Ah."

From her pocket, she pulled out a smartphone — rougher, more scuffed and well-worn than the one she'd bought me, with scratches and gouges carved into the outer protective casing. It looked like she'd taken it through a warzone. Then, she started thumbing through it, fingers moving rapidly.

"What is it?" I asked.

"Something you really need to see," she replied. "Hang on a second…"

I glanced at Amy, but she shrugged and didn't seem to have any better and idea what this was about than I did.

"Here."

Lisa shoved the phone over to me and into my hands, and I took it from her curiously, unsure of what she was talking about. Next to me, Amy crowded close so she could see it, too, and when I looked down at the webpage that was open, my heart shuddered to a stop.

 _MAYOR'S NIECE KIDNAPPED_ , read the headline of the news article. Next to it was what looked like the school photo of a young girl maybe four or five years younger than me, with long dark hair and big, gray eyes.

 _Yesterday around noon, Dinah Alcott, Mayor Christner's eleven year old niece, was kidnapped from her home…_

My eyes moved of their own accord to check the date the article had been published: Friday, April 15, 2011.

The day after the Undersiders robbed the bank.

My stomach dropped.

I went back to the article, racing through the words so fast I almost didn't have time to parse them all. Attacked… Men with guns… Parents were injured but in stable condition… Dinah kidnapped during the lunch hour… No demands, no ransom, no communication from the kidnappers at all…

When I was done, I looked back up at Lisa, an accusation forming on my tongue.

But she beat me to the punch.

"I just put the pieces together a couple of days ago," she told me. "If it hadn't been for Bakuda and her tantrum, then maybe…"

"You were a distraction."

Her lips tightened grimly. She nodded. "He used us to draw attention so he could go in and grab her without getting the heroes involved."

"He?" asked Amy. "You mean _Coil_?"

"Yeah." Lisa worked her jaw for a moment. "I haven't _quite_ figured out what he wants her for. I have a couple of ideas… Maybe as a bargaining chip with the Mayor? I mean, that sounds like the kind of thing he'd do, sure, but I checked the PRT's files and they don't even know he's involved."

"Wait, hold on a second," said Amy. "You _checked_ the PRT's _files_? _How_?"

…Not my first question, but definitely one of the ones I wanted an answer to.

A brief smile tugged at Lisa's lips. "I hacked into them. How else?"

"You can do that?" I blurted out.

"High level Thinker," Lisa answered somewhat smugly, like it was obvious. "Passwords and security codes don't mean anything to me."

"That's _illegal_ ," Amy said hotly.

"And I'm a supervillain, remember?" Lisa replied. "Look, that's not the point. The point is, as far as the PRT knows, Coil wasn't involved in her kidnapping. He hasn't made any demands yet or taken responsibility. He hasn't asked for a ransom. That doesn't mean he _hasn't_ , only that they don't know about it, but if he has, the Mayor has managed to keep it out of the press for two weeks without _anyone_ catching on."

Left unsaid was how likely it was that something like that could happen with such a prominent figure in Brockton Bay, especially with the kidnapping making front page news.

"What do _you_ think, then?" I asked her.

She frowned. "I don't have anything concrete."

"Your best guess, then."

She chewed on her bottom lip for a moment, brow furrowed in thought, then let out a short breath through her nose.

"Okay," she said. "Okay. Alright. So, Coil doesn't need money. He's got plenty of it. How, I'm not sure. How much, I don't know. I'd have to get a look at his accounts. But since he can comfortably pay both us — uh, the Undersiders, that is — _and_ his private army of mercs, it's obviously quite a lot and obviously it's a very stable source of income."

"So it's not about money," I concluded.

"He's a Bond villain, you said," I heard Amy mutter. "When do they _ever_ need money?"

"Right." Lisa nodded. "If he's extorting the Mayor, it's not for money. At the same time, though, there are easier and better ways of blackmailing someone. Kidnapping a person to extort someone _necessarily_ involves holding her life or safety at risk, which makes it _more_ likely the police or the FBI or whoever is gonna get involved, not less. In this case, the PRT. A surer and easier way is to dig up dirt on the guy and threaten to expose it in order to get him to do what you want."

"Like an affair or something, you mean," Amy clarified. "Something that could get the Mayor in trouble, like if he embezzled city funds or whatever."

"Exactly!" said Lisa. "And Coil's done that before, so it's not like it's something he can't do. It's not always _me_ he uses to do it, either, so obviously he can hire investigators or hackers to do the job, too. So that means that it's not about blackmail or extortion, whatever he needs Dinah for."

"If not that, then what, though?" I asked.

Because what else could he need an eleven-year-old girl for? I mean, there were _things_ I could think of that I wouldn't entirely put past a guy like Coil, and they were all bad and horrible and disgusting, but at the same time, if it was just about an eleven-year-old brunette girl, there _had_ to have been someone less risky to grab than the Mayor's niece.

"Wait," Amy interjected, sounding as though the thought nauseated her, "you don't think he wants her because he… well…"

"Whatever I think about Coil's moral fiber — or lack thereof," said Lisa sardonically, "I'm also fairly sure that he's not an outright pedophile. Even if he was, he's not stupid enough or careless enough to grab a girl that's so high profile, rather than snatching a girl from a poor or homeless family. Too, if he just wanted to get his rocks off, he wouldn't have kept her, he'd have just kidnapped her in one timeline, done what he wanted, and then dropped it in favor of the one where he didn't."

The thought made me faintly ill. Fortunately, I didn't have a real enough idea of what Coil looked like for my brain to conjure an image of him doing exactly that.

"So, if it's not about extortion and it's not about…about _that_ ," I asked, "then what _is_ it about?"

A thought clicked in my head.

"Wait. You don't think she has _powers_ , do you?"

Lisa's lips pulled into a grim line. She nodded. "That's the part I'm not sure about, but it's the only thing that really seems to fit. I can't give you a one-hundred percent answer about what _kind_ she'd have if she does, but…" She grimaced. "Well, it says something that I'm the only one of the Undersiders he was so desperate to have that he needed to threaten me at gunpoint to get me on board."

"A Thinker?" said Amy. "You think the girl — Dinah — might have some kind of Thinker power?"

"Or Tinker," Lisa replied. "Those are the two most sought after powers, Thinker and Tinker. I don't know how he's forcing her to cooperate, or even if he's _managed_ to force her cooperation, yet, but if he's kept her this long and hasn't resorted to obvious, visible tactics — like hurting her parents — to get to her, then she must have powers he desperately wants."

"Or she's already given in," I added darkly.

"Or that, yeah."

"They must be pretty powerful, then," Amy murmured.

We both turned to her. "What?"

She blinked.

"Oh, um…" She fidgeted. "It's something from one of the college courses that Vicky… that Vicky's taking. About parahumans. Uh, Parahuman Studies, I think. There's apparently a correlation between how young you trigger and how strong your powers are. The younger, the stronger. And, uh, yeah."

Lisa frowned. "It would explain why he wants her so badly," she allowed. "If she's a Thinker on my level, I could see him going through a lot of effort to keep her around. It'd definitely explain how much trouble he went through to grab her in the first place."

That… That could be a problem, though, couldn't it.

"Is that something we'll have to worry about?" I asked.

Lisa turned to me.

"What do you mean?"

"If she's a Thinker on your level," I clarified, "will that mean he knows we're coming before we even leave the house?"

She mulled it over, for a minute. I could almost see the cogs turning in her head.

"What if she's a precog? Won't that mean he'll be prepared for us?" Amy added. "Hell, how can we even be sure he'll be where we think he'll be?"

I had a few ways around that, probably. Of confirming he'd be where we thought he would. On the other hand, if he used Dinah's power in conjunction with his own, vacating his base in one and staying put in another… But then, no matter _which_ timeline he was in, wouldn't I find him all the same? Unless…

Ugh, this whole timeline bullshit was going to give me a headache.

"It depends," Lisa finally answered. "I feel confident enough to say his power is some kind of precognition, and Taylor's power messes up its accuracy. If that's the case, then her power should also screw up _other_ precogs, too, so if we use Taylor's power to get to his base or she's using her power on the way there, he shouldn't have any warning."

"If she's not predicting us right now," I pointed out.

"Even then, I'm not sure how accurate it could get," Lisa said. "I honestly have no idea how badly your defenses mess up precogs — or if they even do at all."

"Keep planning, hope for the best?" Amy asked wryly.

"Or explore other options." Lisa turned to me. "How much range does your best wizard have for her spells? Could you hit him from a distance, without ever entering his base?"

I hesitated.

"If…I had control spanning the entire city, yes," I hedged. "I could hit him from here. Or even if I had control over the ley lines —"

"Ley lines?" Amy asked incredulously. "Wait. Hold on. Those _exist_?"

"I'm surprised you even know what they are," Lisa commented.

"I _do_ read," Amy snapped back.

" _Point being_ ," I drew us back on topic, "I can _find_ him from here, but I can't _do_ anything to him from here."

To be fair, _I_ wasn't entirely sure they were real, either, or if it was just a way my powers interacted with the world or something. Some of the things that my powers took for granted or were even based on seemed too…fantastical, too impossible, to ever be real, and yet they worked or they existed, at least for the duration of that hero being in use. And since most of those things required a hero who made use of them or understood them in the first place…

I'd given up trying to understand this stuff about my powers ages ago. It was easier on my sanity, that way.

"What if we found these ley lines?" Lisa suggested. "Could you take control of them and do it like that?"

"Are you seriously just accepting this without batting an eye?" Amy asked incredulously.

Lisa shrugged. "If there's one thing I've learned about Taylor's powers, it's not to question them. It's easier to avoid the headache if you just ignore the bullshit and write it off as powers being weird."

"…Right."

She turned back to me. "So? Can you?"

I made a sound in the back of my throat. "It's not about finding them, exactly. It's about where they're located."

"And?"

"…One's directly below the Rig, Protectorate HQ. One's deep underground in the Brockton Bay aquifer. The third is seated under the PRT building downtown."

That was actually what the plan had been for building Nimue's castle: find one of the ley lines and construct it there. Unfortunately, both the aquifer and the PRT HQ were out for obvious reasons, and I couldn't have just asked the Protectorate to move the Rig a mile or two out of the way. And since the bay was the only real place to hide a freaking _castle_ in the first place, the only thing left to do had been to pick a large enough empty spot to build it and do so.

Fortunately, for Nimue, it was fine. She was more of a support type; she _had_ offensive options, some of them fairly powerful, but she was much more of a…a maker of trinkets, so to speak, than a fighter. Long range attacks weren't her thing anyway, and anything that required a big enough bang could be completed using the castle's architecture, regardless of access to the ley lines.

 _Un_ fortunately, _most_ of my casters who could do long range required access to the ley lines to have the kind of reach Lisa was talking about. Medea could even have hypnotized him into coming to _us_ , but she didn't have the range on her own to do that kind of thing across that kind of distance.

So, unless the Protectorate decided to pick up their base and move, no ley lines for us.

Lisa laughed. "Okay, yeah, no, there's no way we're getting to any of those, huh?"

"Not unless you feel like going for a swim on the bottom of the bay."

She grimaced. "I'd rather not."

 _Me, too,_ I didn't say. I didn't relish the idea of trusting an amulet of waterbreathing that had been rushed through in a couple of days under the crushing weight of thousands of gallons of ocean water a hundred feet or two beneath the surface.

"So, what other options do we have?" asked Amy. "If we can't do it that way."

"Are we still assuming Dinah's a precog and he's coerced her into working with him?"

"We might as well," I said. "The worst that could happen is that we're wrong and we overprepared."

"Point," Lisa allowed. "Okay. Well… We could Trojan Horse it? You guys sneak in while I pretend to go meet him? Ambush while he's focused on me?"

"After he tried to _kill_ you?" said Amy incredulously. "And you think he _won't_ just try it again?"

"Eh." Lisa wobbled her hand back and forth. "Maybe? If he thinks he's in control, he might decide to hear me out."

I shook my head. "He's already decided you're a liability. If he thinks he can't rely on his power to work right around you, I don't think he'd risk it."

Not with what she'd told me about him.

"Point again," Lisa admitted. She blew out a frustrated sigh. "If we can't sneak in like that… I don't like the idea of a frontal assault. If we get it wrong and he slips away with his power, it'll give him that much more time and information to work with."

An idea popped into my head.

If sneaking in was our best option, then…

"What if we _could_?" I asked.

"Could what?" replied Lisa.

"Sneak in," I clarified.

She blinked, and then a slow grin spread across her face. "You have an idea."

I nodded. "What if we could turn _invisible_?"

"You can _do_ that?" Amy blurted out.

Lisa's eyes danced with excitement. "Go on."

"There'll be a few limitations," I warned. "I can get the visible spectrum, maybe even infrared, but if he has some Tinkertech sensor that sees into ultraviolet or whatever, then it probably won't work. It won't stop sound or motion sensors or even smell, either. But if we aim for Sunday night, then I can make this work."

"Lay it on me, Chief," said Lisa.

I bit at my bottom lip.

"I'm going to need a spare bed sheet, and I'll probably be working through most of the night tonight and tomorrow. It's not going to be pretty and it's not going to look like a work of art. But it _should_ get the job done. As long as you can lead us through his base and he doesn't have anything that can catch us, we can be in and get to him without him ever realizing we're there."

And if all went well, we could be there and back with enough time to catch some sleep before school.

"Alright." Lisa grinned. "Got a pen and paper?"

I pulled one each from my desk drawers and handed them to her, and she set them down and started to draw.

"So, this is what I know about the layout of his base. I probably missed a few things, but if we follow the route I remember, it shouldn't matter. There's the entrance, here, and down from there, a hallway — all lined with mercs with guns, mostly automatics and sidearms — and I'm pretty sure some turret emplacements _here_ and _here_ …"

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

 **Look out for that foreshadowing! Eh? Where? Of course I won't tell you where! That defeats the point!**

 **Anyway, this is mostly transition chapter. More buildup for things to come.**

 **As always, read, review, and enjoy.**

 **And for early access to chapters and bonus content:**

 **p a treon . com (slash) James_D_Fawkes**


	44. Interlude 5-b: Black Dog Strut

**Sunder 5.b: Black Dog Strut**

Director Emily Piggot took in a deep breath through her nose, let it out slowly between the hands she'd folded in front of her face, and looked up.

"Are you satisfied?"

The collection of her fellow PRT Directors arrayed across the screen all made varying noises of assent. Each of them had a copy of the report that sat on Emily's desk, a hastily constructed preliminary after action report of the confrontation between Vista and her team and the independent cape, Apocrypha.

"Very," said Chief Director Costa-Brown. "The situation was resolved about as well as could be expected."

"Christ, I don't know how you can call that _good_ ," someone murmured.

Neither did Emily. In terms of how it _could_ have gone, however, it was easily one of the least shitty possibilities. Not the best by any stretch of the imagination, but considering the best was "and they all got along and became friends," and was therefore unbelievably optimistic, this was probably the best they should have realistically expected.

To a degree, at least. No one could have predicted the sniper.

"I'd like to renew my objection to this entire course of action," said another. "It's the _courts_ ' job to determine whether or not Apocrypha is guilty, not ours."

"Your objection is noted — _again_ , Deputy Director Tagg," said Costa-Brown coolly.

Tagg subsided, scowling at the subtle dig to his position, that he was only even there because his Director had been out sick for two weeks.

He'd been one of those least happy with the decision to let Vista go forward with her plans, although not because she was a Ward, but because it gave her the impression that she could get away with defying orders and bucking the rules. He'd also been the most dissatisfied — very vocally so — with how the whole situation with Apocrypha had been handled from the get go.

He didn't seem to understand that this was a _bomb_ they were sitting on. If they pressured Apocrypha over Shadow Stalker's death, they'd make their very own worst enemy — and even worse than that, one who had a very damning card to play if she felt she needed to.

"Although the Chief-Director's phrasing is a little… _unfortunate_ ," said Director Armstrong, "I have to agree that the situation has resolved itself in a satisfactory manner, considering the alternatives."

"A Ward got her _arm_ blown off!" snarled Director Wilson. "You call that 'satisfactory?' I'd call it one of the worst case scenarios!"

"And not only was she healed as though nothing had ever happened, but we have more information about a cape whose limits we still don't really know," replied Amstrong calmly. "And, in the process, we also achieved our original goal: we can now say that Apocrypha is reasonable enough to avoid unnecessary violence and possesses heroic tendencies sufficient that she won't hold a grudge against someone she might not like."

 _And all it cost us was to heap another trauma on five teenagers,_ Emily thought sourly.

"That doesn't just _erase_ —"

"There are plenty of things about this that didn't quite go how we intended," Costa-Brown interrupted. "That some things went wrong or some factors were in play that we weren't aware of does not change the fact that this _is_ a victory, however."

"Yes, this sniper," said Director Cruz, steering the conversation away from the hot button. "Do we have any information regarding who he or she might have been? Was it one of the gangs?"

"Unconfirmed," Emily replied. "Considering the distance from which the round appears to have been fired, however, there are only so many snipers with that level of skill. It's entirely possible that this may have been an attempted hit by Victor of the Empire Eighty-Eight. We believe he likely has the skill necessary."

They probably still didn't have a complete list of all of the skills he had stolen during his career as a villain, so they could only speculate. Even if they _did_ come up with something they thought approximated a number, the nature of his power meant that it could and likely would change within a month.

Capes like that were the most annoying. Hard enough to deal with them when they _weren't_ constantly adding new powers or abilities to their repertoire.

"But you don't believe that," said Costa-Brown.

Emily frowned. "No. We don't have a motive for it, for one, although it's entirely possible he might have been hired for it, and for another… Miss Hebert's testimony indicates that she believes this to be the work of the local supervillain known as Coil."

 _That_ got her a few murmurs. Coil was one of the less renowned supervillains in the Bay, a slippery, understated villain who was more famous for not being famous. He _had_ territory, he took it when he could, but he also didn't seem too eager to _keep_ it. In fact, whether or not he was even a _cape_ had been — and, to some extent, still was — up for debate.

"It fits, to a degree," Armstrong allowed. "He's the one known for employing mercenaries, yes?"

"To the best of our knowledge, yes."

It was the one thing they knew about him with any real surety. Even Taylor Hebert's testimony could only be taken as supposition and hearsay until it bore out.

Armstrong leaned back in his chair. "And mercenaries are usually ex-soldiers or privately trained paramilitary agents."

"Our forensic analysts are going over the bullets now," Emily confirmed, "see if they can match it to anything currently in the system. The round that hit Vista was recovered from the road, mangled but mostly intact, good enough that we think we might be able to match the rifling. The round that hit Apocrypha, however…"

Costa-Brown leaned forward with clear interest. "She was hit?"

"And completely unharmed," said Emily. "The round that hit her deformed on impact. No penetration, not even through her clothes. All that's left of it is a disc, about the size of a half-dollar."

"How many powers does this girl _have_?" someone muttered.

"Given that the barrier observed in her Breaker form didn't seem to be present, the current theory is that she used one of her 'Heroes' and imbued her clothes with some kind of Breaker ability, as well."

"Do we have any idea how powerful this ability might be?" asked Tagg. "Would it stop us from hitting her with containment foam? Tasers? Beanbag rounds?"

At least he hadn't suggested using _artillery_ on a _fifteen-year-old girl_. She was well-liked enough, especially on PHO, that if it ever got out that they'd planned on trying, there'd probably be a huge public backlash. They _had_ gone out of their way to give the girl quite a bit of glory, after all.

"We don't know. The size of the bullets — both of them — suggest the sniper was using fifty-caliber rounds, however, so small arms fire is likely to be ineffective. Whether that applies to other forms of projectile weaponry or even things like tasers, we simply can't say."

"Meaning that any countermeasure we might employ has a fair chance of failing," said Cost-Brown. She changed tacks. "You said you think the rounds were fifty-caliber. Do we believe that this might be related to the other incident Downtown?"

Emily frowned. She'd thought that incident hadn't made it up the chain, yet, so she'd have more time to try and get it pieced together, first.

"Other incident?" asked Armstrong.

"Around the same time as Vista's confrontation with Apocrypha," said Emily, "there was another incident on the Boardwalk. A sniper, also using fifty-caliber rounds, fired four bullets at a coffee shop. Two of them hit roughly the same spot — one a chair, one the table in front of that chair — and one was embedded in the middle of the road in front of the shop."

"That's only three," he pointed out. "What about the fourth?"

Emily let out a long breath through her nose. "Deformed, almost identically to the one that hit Apocrypha."

All at once, the other Directors broke out in questions, clamoring and shouting, such that Emily couldn't hear any of them clearly. For several minutes, they argued back and forth almost incoherently, and she sat there, waiting, until finally, Chief Director Costa-Brown opened her mouth and snapped, "Quiet!"

Almost immediately, the others subsided and stopped talking. When they had, Costa-Brown turned to Emily and asked, "What do we know about the target of the second incident?"

"Almost nothing," said Emily. "The only witness we have is the barista working at the coffee shop, a young man by the name of Richard Caffey, and all he's been able to tell us so far is that she was a pretty blonde girl."

" _That_ narrows it down," Tagg grumbled.

"He's currently sitting in one of our conference rooms with the best sketch artist on our payroll," she went on, "but I don't expect to get much of anything useful out of it. Either she's dead, in which case we'll probably never find her, or she's been scared into hiding."

"I thought you said that the bullet deformed, the same way it did when Apocrypha was hit," Armstrong pointed out. "Meaning she wasn't hurt. Why are you so sure she's dead, then?"

"Because according to our _only_ current witness, after she was shot at, a group of men dressed as Enforcers, all of them carrying semi-automatic pistols equipped with suppressors, chased her into the Docks." Emily briefly closed her eyes. Let out a sigh through her nostrils. "We don't know what happened to her, after that, but it's likely she was caught and probably executed."

She'd never agreed with the idea of the Boardwalk's Enforcers. They had too much leeway, not enough oversight, and most importantly, they weren't sworn to uphold the law like a real police force was. Quite frankly, they were little more than sanctioned thugs, and more than one of them probably had criminal records.

Unfortunately, they were also outside of her jurisdiction, and the BBPD didn't have the manpower to either arrest them or pick up their slack. They were a part of life in Brockton Bay — tolerated, but only because there was nothing anyone could really do about them.

"Christ," muttered Wilson.

"And the similarity in the deformation of the bullets could be a coincidence," said Armstrong. "It's entirely possible that this girl simply had some form of Brute power, and she ran to avoid outing herself — more than she might have already, at least."

"Just so."

Personally, Emily didn't believe in coincidences. That both girls had survived nearly identical attacks in what appeared to be exactly the same way almost certainly meant that they were connected to each other in some form or another — more likely than not, that they knew each other personally. Maybe they were even _friends_.

There were two problems with proving it: firstly, there was no supporting evidence, no available witnesses who could place the two of them in the same place at the same time, and because of the fact that the blonde girl had paid with cash instead of a credit or debit card, no means of connecting her to any other place in the city where they could ask if both had been seen together at any point. Without a name or a paper trail, they'd have to wait until the sketch came back and try to find her with facial recognition on whatever security cameras they could get their hands on. Even the Thinkers on the Protectorate's payroll would need _something_ besides a vague description.

Emily wouldn't bet on it, though. The likelihood of Caffey remembering the face of one girl he'd spent all of a few minutes with well enough for the sketch artist to get an accurate rendering was fairly low.

Secondly, the girl likely _was_ dead. No matter how athletic she was, a single teenage girl could not outrun a full team of highly trained ex-military mercenaries, not forever. It was entirely possible, of course, that she _had_ managed to give them the slip, somehow, but Emily's money was on her corpse washing up on the shore or being found in some rarely used dumpster a week from now, if it ever showed up in the first place.

This was Brockton Bay, after all.

"Do we have anything else?"

"Nothing substantial," Emily admitted. "We're trying to get the logs for nearby cell towers, see if she tried to make any calls while she was running, but we don't know which carrier she had and all of them are dragging their feet as a result. Even if we _do_ get all the records, it'll take a while to sort through all of the calls and pinpoint what might have been hers. That's if she even _made_ any calls."

And even that was assuming she hadn't been using a burner phone, for whatever reason.

"What about Apocrypha?" asked the Chief Director. "Have we learned anything else about her powers? Her limits?"

Emily's lips pulled tight. "Some. According to Clockblocker and statements from Panacea and Glory Girl, she displayed a potent healing ability of some kind. Apparently, after speaking some kind of incantation, she reformed Vista's missing arm from, I'm told, quite literally nothing. The nature of the event makes it likely that this was one of her 'wizard' or 'spellcaster' type heroes."

One of the Directors snorted at the mention of magic. Emily didn't particularly care. Whether it was magic or not didn't change exactly how extraordinary — and extraordinarily _dangerous_ — powers were, and she wasn't one of those eggheads trying to figure out how they worked, so it was all the same to her.

"The…peculiarities and eccentricities of powers aside," said Armstrong, "do we have any idea on this new ability's limitations?"

"None," she confirmed. "Only that it did not, unlike Panacea's powers, require any available biomass to function. She restored Vista's arm without any obvious source of matter to convert."

"Guess that's why we're humoring the whole 'magic' thing, then," Cruz muttered.

Emily smiled tightly. "Our experts just threw up their hands and declared that she must be directly converting energy from higher dimensions into matter, and her incantation was some kind of matrix to tell it what to look like."

A few chuckles answered her.

"Have you observed any side effects, so far?" asked the Chief Director. "Miraculous as this healing power is, it does us no good if there are harmful drawbacks."

"None. Vista's currently about an hour into her mandatory seventy-two hour Master-Stranger observation period, but so far, there's no indication of any lingering Master or Stranger effects upon her behavior. Furthermore, the tests and scans performed beforehand show no abnormalities in her bloodwork, her musculature, her skeletal structure, her brain, or anything else we tested. Her arm is, as far as we can tell, exactly the same as the one she lost."

And they'd put her through the wringer. The battery of tests and examinations they'd put her through had included everything they could safely and legally do with the equipment they had available, no matter how humiliating Vista had likely found a number of them.

The PRT did _not_ fool around when it came to the two most dangerous power types in their system.

They'd come back with nothing. To be sure, some Master powers were subtle and hard to detect, even with the most precise of modern instruments, but by the same token, the more overt ones could be _incredibly_ obvious and blatant. Either way, the lack of results currently did not mean that Vista was cleared.

The Chief Director hummed. "Continue the standard Master-Stranger period. Let it double as punishment for going outside the chain of command."

 _It wouldn't even be necessary if you'd just let me handle it the way I wanted to,_ Emily wanted to say, but she swallowed the bitterness and did as she'd been trained to do. "Understood."

Ten years behind a desk hadn't changed the fact that she was a soldier, and soldiers followed orders.

"Do we have a plan of action going forward?" asked Tagg. "Inflicting such a grievous wound on one of our Wards, no matter the circumstances, is not something we can stand to let pass."

"Unless we get Thinker support, our hands are tied," said Emily. "The best we can do is press Coil's mercs harder. Without any idea where he bases his operations or how to draw him out, that's all that we can do."

"Do we think _Apocrypha_ might try for a confrontation?"

Emily turned to the Chief Director.

"If she does, do we have reason to believe she might have some method of pinpointing his location?" Costa-Brown continued. "Your estimates place her as a Trump in a vein similar to Eidolon. Do you think it would be accurate to assume one of her powers would include a Thinker ability that might help her find him and his base of operations?"

"Frankly, Chief Director, we have no idea," Emily said bluntly. "Given the limited variety of powers we've seen her display so far, there's no concrete answer I could possibly give you. However, if we assume that her own estimation of her powers and how they work is correct, then the answer is likely yes. I'd feel more confident if I had an expert in mythology on hand to advise me."

"I see." The Chief Director made a note of something offscreen. "We'll have to see if we can consult a couple of professionals in the field. Even if the breadth and depth of her possible powersets exceeds our expectations, I don't imagine it would hurt to have a better grasp on what to expect from at least _some_ of them."

"Are we even sure they _do_ work the way she said?" asked Wilson skeptically.

"During the first encounter, she referred to the powerset she used to defeat Lung by the name 'Siegfried,'" Emily stated. "Siegfried is, as I've been told, a legendary hero from Germanic mythology, featuring as the protagonist of both the _Nibelungenlied_ and Richard Wagner's operatic epic, _Der Ring des Nibelungen_. During her second encounter, again with Miss Militia and Armsmaster, the powersets she named were 'Hassan of the Hundred Faces,' whose power seems to be some kind of self-duplication, and 'King Arthur,' who likely had multiple abilities, but the only ones recorded were a self-healing type Brute power and some kind of Stranger aura."

" _King Arthur_ had a _Stranger_ power?" Armstrong asked incredulously. "What?"

"According to Armsmaster and Miss Militia's reports, it made her seem grander, stronger, and more capable than her appearance would suggest," said Emily. "A leader, in other words. A king. Miss Militia described it as a kind of charisma that carried not only in her bearing, but in a subtle, indefinable quality in her voice."

Whatever that really meant. She could only guess that you had to experience it for yourself to understand it, and she wasn't eager to put herself at the mercy of a cape just for the chance to see what that Stranger power actually felt like.

"Which makes a degree of sense, I suppose," Armstrong replied, settling back down. "Now that I think about it, yes, I don't think it's too strange. Her powers, however they work, might have interpreted any charisma King Arthur might have had in his legend into something more tangible. In that case, it might be a good idea to treat any charismatic hero from mythology as having the same kind of power until proven otherwise."

"I'll make a note of it when I update her file."

"And the other one? Hassan of the Hundred Faces?"

"More obscure," Emily answered. "The only result we could find was 'Hassan-i Sabbah,' the supposed leader of a sect of Islamic assassins from around the twelfth century AD. There's no mention of an ability to duplicate himself."

"There's no other references to that name? At all?"

"None."

The Chief Director hummed. "It could be that Apocrypha has access to resources for research that we don't," someone snorted, "or it may be that her power connects to 'heroes' that have even been lost or forgotten to history."

"If that's the case," said Armstrong, "then even if we researched every hero ever written down, she could still have access to ones whose stories didn't survive any of a thousand different natural disasters, sackings, pillagings, or religious conversions over the past two thousand years — _or more_. Do we have any idea how recent a legend has to be for its characters to count for her powers?"

"None."

A collection of frowns greeted Emily's answer.

"Christ," muttered Wilson. "How many thousands of years does it go back?"

No one volunteered an estimate. It wasn't like the research teams had any more of an idea; whenever they were asked, their long-winded, complicated, scientific answers really boiled down to the same thing: they didn't know.

"Do we have anything else to go on? Anything on the power she used to heal Vista?"

"A description of her appearance and the apparent reliance on incantations, but nothing else," said Emily grimly. "She didn't volunteer any names for this particular one, and whether she deliberately left it out when giving her statement to Armsmaster or she simply didn't think to mention it, we have no way of knowing."

The other Directors grumbled lowly.

"I don't like this," Tagg put in. "We know too little about her. Right now, our strategy seems to be, 'cross our fingers and hope she doesn't turn villain.' Because we don't have _any_ plans for how to deal with her."

As much as she disliked Tagg, Emily had to agree. For all that he was militant and far too eager to start planning offensive action against capes who were nominally allies, it rubbed her the wrong way that they really _didn't_ have any options for dealing with Taylor Hebert _except_ to hope that she stayed a hero.

If she decided to become a villain and directly oppose the PRT and the Protectorate, it seemed that their only current option was to stick their heads between their legs and kiss their asses goodbye.

"If she becomes too much of a handful, I'll authorize the intervention of the Triumvirate," Costa-Brown declared casually, as though she hadn't just said that she would send the cape equivalent of a nuclear warhead against a single teenage girl.

"What?"

"Are you serious?"

"The _Triumvirate_? For _one girl_?"

"That's madness!"

"In the meantime," the Chief Director spoke over the others, "Director Piggot, if we can't convince her to join the Wards and get her under our thumb, then we must at least maintain a good relationship with her. To that end, I want you to keep a good lookout for the next week or two. If she _does_ confront Coil and his mercenaries, I want _you_ to be there the moment you catch a whiff of trouble."

Emily frowned, but gave her superior a severe nod. "I understand."

A hint of a smile flitted over Costa-Browns lips.

"Good. That's settled. If, for now, there are no other concerns that need to be addressed by this assembly?" Silence. None of them looked quite happy, but neither did they look like they really wanted to keep arguing the Apocrypha issue. "Excellent. Then, this meeting is adjourned."

One by one, the images of the other Directors winked and vanished, until, with a final, spiteful murmur from Tagg, the only one left was the Chief Director, who stared up at Emily stonily. They were now alone.

"You disapprove," she stated. It wasn't a question.

Emily frowned. "It was risky, it was convoluted, and even if things had gone exactly as planned, there was still far too much that could have gone wrong."

"But it gave us new insights into Miss Hebert's powers and mindset." Costa-Brown leaned forward, folding her hands in front of her face. "I consider it quite a trade. Not only do we now know that she _does_ , indeed, have some kind of 'magic' based heroes in her repertoire, we know she's capable of healing, we know that she likely has the ability to imbue items with at least temporary powers of their own, and we know that her heroic tendencies are strong enough to override any lingering negative sentiments she might have carried from the debacle with Shadow Stalker."

"Most of that could have been handled if she came in for power testing."

Costa-Brown gave a short nod. "True. However, that supposes that she would even be _willing_ to come in for power testing. Given her overall feelings regarding the PRT and the Protectorate at this time, it was more likely she'd refuse outright and we'd know even less now than we do currently."

"Feelings that this course of action did nothing to ameliorate," Emily shot back. "We ran the risk of alienating what is likely the most powerful single parahuman in Brockton Bay, and we managed to avoid it _in spite of_ this plan."

"And I judged that the risk was worth it to gain the knowledge that we now have," replied the Chief Director. "You should know, Emily. There is no better time to observe a person's _true_ character than in a moment of intense stress. That it is in just such moments where you find out whether you can count on the guy next to you, or whether he'll cut and run when trouble comes calling."

Emily took in a deep breath to try and keep her blood pressure down, knowing that Costa-Brown had chosen her words _specifically_ for her, _specifically_ to hit home for her. She _knew_ those words had been chosen for no other reason than because of the impact they would have, and that the Chief Director was _precisely_ aware of just what nerve she'd touched.

 _Bitch_.

"If she was a soldier, I'd be inclined to agree with you. But she's a fifteen-year-old girl."

"Who has more power than most people would know what to do with," Costa-Brow pointed out. "We can't afford uncertainties, Emily. If we don't know enough about her powers, then we have to make _damn_ sure we know where we stand with her. Someone like her is the _last_ person we need to take a surprise hit from."

 _And I_ still _think you went about this in the most cock-eyed, nonsensical way you could have,_ Emily didn't say. "I understand."

A single eyebrow raised. "Do you? I'll never tell you that you have to _agree_ with all of my decisions, Emily. I _will_ tell you that I expect you to follow them, when they're direct orders."

"I understand." Even if it tasted sour on her tongue to say so.

"Good. Have a good day, Emily."

The image of Costa-Brown flickered and vanished. Emily Piggot sighed and leaned back in her chair, and not for the first time, she wished she could down a bottle of scotch without killing herself in the process. God _damn_ , she could use a good drink.

But, there was no time to rest. Instead, she reached over to her phone, dialed a number, and waited until the man on the other end picked up.

" _Yes?"_

"Armsmaster. Is Carol Dallon here, yet?"

A pause.

" _According to security footage, she's still in the process of being registered at the front desk."_

"And Glory Girl?"

" _In interview room five."_

Emily grunted. "Good. As soon as she's done, have Carol Dallon escorted there. I'm on my way, right now."

" _Understood."_

 _Click_ went the line. Emily sighed again, braced herself against the arms of her chair, and then hefted her bulk up and onto her own two feet. She grabbed the necessary files from off of her desk, then made her way around towards her office door.

She had another bomb to defuse before the day was up.

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

 **This was...actually, the first 1.6k were written a while back, and I finished the rest of it yesterday. Like, _entirely_ over the course of yesterday. 3k words in one day - yikes, that's not common for me, but I've always known I can do it.**

 **As for my month-long hiatus... Well, absolutely, I'm taking at least _one_ week break before arc 6, but I _do_ want to work on another project for the rest of May. I'm not positive I _will_ , yet, because arc 6 is my favorite arc in this entire story, even if it's probably going to be the hardest to write.**

 **As always, read, review, and enjoy.**

 **And for early access to chapters and bonus content:**

 **p a treon . com (slash) James_D_Fawkes**


	45. Interlude 6-0: Spider's Loom

**Bonus Interlude 6.0: Spider's Loom**

"Set. Install."

Thinking about it, this was only even the second time Amy had actually seen Taylor use her powers. It was a much different experience, this time, watching it in the privacy of her room without the threat of gunfire sitting outside and a maimed adolescent girl stretched out on a table, compared to the frenzy of adrenaline and heightened emotions from the first time. She could focus entirely on what she was seeing, rather than giving it half her attention as she kept Vista from bleeding out.

It should have looked creepy, she decided. It should have been discomforting on a deep and visceral level, because the human body wasn't designed to change that rapidly or that drastically, and especially not both at once.

Maybe Amy's perception of that was skewed, though. With her powers being what they were and all.

It was, at the very least, kind of strange, the way Taylor's body shrunk down and filled out at the same time. It was strange to watch her face smoothly transition from her own appearance to some halfway amalgam, where you could still see hints of _Taylor_ if you squinted and looked hard enough, or to watch her chest and hips expand, or her hair change color and length from the roots out, or even the color of her skin shifting like someone was fiddling with the dimmer switch on a light.

It was even _stranger_ watching her clothes change, shrinking and growing and flowing into new shapes, colors, and patterns as though it had a mind of its own. The cloth morphed and flexed, stretching out and adding material from thin air. Golden fixings bloomed from the fabric like flowers on fast forward, and precious gems swelled up from nothing like fruits, full and glittering.

The actual transformation didn't really take all that long. A second, maybe two. Quickly enough that it could easily be said to have happened "in a flash," just without a big lightshow. But watching it, taking it in, it felt like it took much longer.

The woman that Taylor had become now was a Greek beauty about Amy's height. Her skin was a few shades above olive with brown eyes the color of honey and long, dark brown hair that framed her face. Her white gown was pinned at the shoulders by an equally white shawl or cape that hung to about her waist, and it was fastened under her breasts — large ones, Amy couldn't help noticing — by ornamental bands that were shaped like shafts of bone. Humerus bones, to be exact. Three bands in all, with a horned buckle or brooch splitting up the middle one.

Maybe it was bad to judge from a sample size of only two, but Amy thought that it was unfair that Taylor's heroes were so fucking beautiful.

"Taylor?" Lisa asked tentatively.

"Do you have the sheet?" Taylor asked.

Amy blinked and shook her head. That was her cue. "Oh. Right."

She handed over the old, stained sheet she'd been holding, and the woman Taylor had become took it without comment, frowning. Amy wondered what she was going to do with it. Dunk it in some potion? Meditate with the sheet sitting in her lap? Pull a Tolkien and sing a spell into the cloth?

Taylor did none of those things. Instead, in a clear, decisive tone, she uttered something that sounded like a command.

"Argaleiós Arákhnēs."

Immediately, the bands around her waist unfurled like the petals of a flower into four long, gangly appendages. They were ungainly and spider-like, with too many joints and too narrow segments that should have collapsed and bent under their own weight. Then the sharpened tips split into five — fuck, those were _fingers_. That meant that those long, gangly appendages…they were extra _arms_.

"The fuck?" Lisa gasped, voicing Amy's thoughts.

Taylor's lips quirked up on one side. "It's not _that_ surprising, is it? I mean, there's only so many legendary weavers and seamstresses out there, you know."

Lisa's brow furrowed. "Wait. A legendary seamstress? Does that mean…?"

An eyebrow quirked up, now, too, as Taylor gestured down to her body, and Lisa started cackling. Amy didn't really understand what was going on, but maybe that was just because she wasn't exactly an expert on mythology.

"I don't get it. What do extra arms have to do with a legendary seamstress?"

"It's the _Spider's Loom_ , Amy," said Lisa, still laughing. "Of _course_ extra arms are involved!"

Which obviously meant something to her, but not to _Amy_. Fucking Thinkers. They got to cheat with their powers.

"I _still_ don't get it," she said, frustrated.

"There's an ancient Greek myth about a woman who got into a weaving contest with Athena and won," Taylor said kindly. "For her victory, and for the temerity of depicting in her tapestry scenes of the gods' cruelty and capriciousness, Athena cursed her to take the form of a spider and spend the rest of her days weaving."

"Hence the word 'arachnid,' from the name of that woman," Lisa added, still grinning. "The seamstress who beat the goddess of weaving at her own game, Arachne. Right?"

Taylor's lips twitched. "You might even call her the 'Orb-Weaving Seamstress.'"

Lisa laughed again, and even Amy couldn't help a smile and a snort.

"That was terrible," said Lisa, but her grin belied her mirth. "That was bad and you should feel bad."

"You still laughed," Amy pointed out.

" _Any_ joke can be funny the first time," Lisa rebutted. She turned back to Taylor. "Ready to get started?"

"Yeah." Taylor nodded. "If you can… find some spare change, a few paperclips or something lying around? Bring them here?"

Paperclips, Amy wondered. What did she need paperclips for? Lisa didn't ask, didn't even seem to think anything strange of it, though, she just nodded like she understood.

"Sure."

"Thanks."

And without another word, Taylor turned her attention back to the sheet in her hands, and then the extra arms started _moving_. They looked gangly and unwieldy and like they would clank and clutter and clash, tangling up as they got in each other's way and tried to all do the same thing at once. Amy had thought for sure that they would be clumsy and nearly useless, although in hindsight, it was a bit silly to think that Taylor would use a hero who was so ineffective and uncoordinated.

Instead, the extra arms moved rapidly and with purpose, picking at individual threads and unraveling them with a speed and precision that boggled the mind. The lower pair grabbed at them, combining and fusing them together as they wound the strands into balls of cotton yarn and set them aside for what Amy could only imagine was future use.

Before her very eyes, the sheet was shrinking one weave at a time.

And Taylor… Taylor simply held onto the sheet with her one pair of real arms, brow furrowed in a look of concentration as the extra sets of arms pulled apart the tiny threads one by one. As though she wasn't doing by herself what clothing companies dedicated entire _buildings_ full of machines for.

A nudge in the ribs tore Amy's attention away, and when she turned, Lisa jerked her head towards the door. "Come on," she said. "She'll be at this for a while, and we have a couple of things to take care of."

With one last backward glance at Taylor, Amy turned and followed Lisa as she led her out of Taylor's room and into the bathroom next door. Once the door had clicked shut behind them and they were alone, Lisa checked to make sure the seat was down, then sat on the toilet lid.

"Alright," she said. "So."

Amy folded her arms.

"Aren't we supposed to be looking for paperclips and spare change?"

Lisa snorted. "Even at that completely ridiculous speed, it's still gonna take her a few hours to get that entire sheet unraveled. It'll take her even _longer_ to put it back together. We've got some time. You, however, need to be making a phone call, so that New Wave doesn't come barreling in here and accidentally get themselves killed on the front lawn like Shadow Stalker was."

Amy grimaced. She was right, of course. Whatever this…this confusing _mess_ of a relationship with Carol was, whether Carol liked her or didn't like her or… _whatever_ , because Amy couldn't figure her out or what she wanted from Amy on the best of days, she _was_ still a member of New Wave, a part of their team. Eventually, they'd come looking for her, and whether Carol actually cared or just tolerated her out of…of some sense of _responsibility_ or something, it would _not_ spare Amy the grounding of her life if she ran off for three days without at least _telling_ someone.

It was just… Well. Her fight with Vicky had been tense enough on its own, but if _Carol_ tried to press the issue, then that…probably wouldn't end well. For anyone.

So, while Amy _knew_ she needed to call and check in, to at least nominally get permission to stay with the Heberts over the weekend, it wasn't something she was looking forward to.

"You're going to have to make it eventually, you know," Lisa prodded. "Whether you want to or not. Might as well do it quickly, like ripping off a band-aid."

"Ripping off a band-aid still _hurts_ , you know," Amy grumbled.

"Sure," Lisa agreed, "but it hurts a whole lot less if you rip it off all at once instead of dragging things out. You're going to have to make that call eventually, Amy, so it might as well be now rather than later."

The worst part about dealing with Thinkers was when you knew they were right.

"Ugh." Amy grimaced. " _Fine_. I'll make the damn call."

She pulled out her phone and started scrolling through her contacts list.

The trouble with this, and the _big_ reason why Amy didn't want to make the call, was that she had no idea what Vicky had told Carol or how much, or whether the PRT had decided to fill her in after the whole debacle with Vista earlier in the afternoon. Any of that by itself could make a drastic difference in Carol's reaction, and that was before Carol had time to think about it and form her _own_ opinion about everything.

The game changer would be how much the PRT told her about Shadow Stalker. Whether they told her about the bullying or the attempted murder or even the locker incident Taylor had told Amy about. _That_ would have the biggest impact.

Because New Wave was about accountability. The idea that capes couldn't escape justice just by taking off their costumes and going home. That heroes didn't get an automatic pass just because they were heroes. That even the likes of the Protectorate needed to be held responsible for their actions, when they did something wrong or illegal.

And how this entire conversation went would hinge utterly on whether or not Carol agreed that Taylor didn't deserve to be prosecuted for defending herself from a psycho with a grudge.

Carol's name was selected and dialed, and Amy lifted her phone up to her ear as it rang. Her other hand played nervously with the hem of her shirt, and she suddenly craved a cigarette to help take the edge off.

Maybe it was better that she didn't, though, she thought absently. She didn't think Carol even knew she smoked, and Taylor and her dad probably wouldn't appreciate their bathroom smelling of tobacco.

Although it might be worth it just to annoy Lisa.

After three rings, Carol picked up. _"Hello?"_

"Um, it's me," Amy said awkwardly. "Amy. I, uh —"

" _Where_ — _are_ — _you?"_ Carol demanded immediately. _"Have you been kidnapped?"_

"No," said Amy. "No, I, uh, I'm at a friend's house, I stayed for dinner —"

" _Are you under duress?"_ Carol asked, cutting across her. _"Tell me the passphrase if you're okay."_

"No, I'm fine, I…" Amy blew out a sigh and felt her cheeks start to heat up. "Just pick me up some peaches from the store, okay?"

She felt stupid saying it, and Lisa proved with her muffled laugh that it wouldn't have mattered if she really _had_ been in trouble, because Thinkers were bullshit and could see right through code words and passphrases like that, but it seemed to mollify Carol, at least. Small mercies.

Great to know that she'd spent all that time when she was younger learning those phrases and memorizing them — _just in case_ , as she and Vicky had been told so many times, _just in case_ — and a teenage Thinker had them figured out in seconds. Awesome to know that all of that time and effort hadn't gone to waste on pointless codes that would never be used.

Just peachy.

 _Fuck, she's starting to rub off on me._

" _Where are you?"_ Carol asked again, a little less insistently, this time. _"Victoria said that you were involved in the incident earlier today, but that you disappeared after it was all over."_

"I'm…at a friend's house," Amy repeated. "She…invited me over for dinner, and, uh, well, Vicky and I have been, um…fighting, recently, so I took her up on it."

There was a long moment of silence. Amy's free hand twisted the fabric of her shirt's hem into a wrinkled mess, and chewing at her bottom lip didn't help her nerves _at all_.

"Um, Carol?"

" _This friend,"_ Carol began, _"is she the other girl involved in the incident with Vista this afternoon?"_

For an instant, Amy hesitated, unsure of what to say or what Carol mentioning that meant. Her tone was measured and closed off, and it gave nothing away to Amy about her thoughts.

"Uh, Taylor, yeah," she answered. "I'm, um, not…sure what you've heard or what Vicky said or how much the PRT has told you —"

" _I've been informed of all the relevant details,"_ said Carol stiffly.

"O-oh. Um… So… Uh… Well…"

Was…that a bad thing? "All of the relevant details" _should_ include all of the stuff about Shadow Stalker, right? The bullying, the locker incident, the attempted murder, and all of that. The fact that the whole thing was self-defense. If they'd told her everything, then Carol should, _should_ , come down on Taylor's side, shouldn't she?

But if Amy'd been sure of that, this call would have been much easier to make in the first place.

"So… Um… Vicky and I are…kind of fighting, right now." Ugh. She'd already said that, hadn't she. "And, um, I… I need… I just need some time away from her, so… So I was thinking of staying the weekend at Taylor's. Um, if that's okay? If you don't mind?"

There was another long moment of silence. Amy's hand resumed its mauling of her shirt as she fidgeted nervously, waiting for Carol's verdict. This was the moment of truth.

Finally, at length, Carol asked, _"You're safe?"_

"Um, yeah. Yeah, I'm okay."

" _Everything's fine? You're not under duress or being threatened?"_

"No, nothing like that. We… We just ate dinner, actually. Um, lasagna."

Another handful of seconds passed. _"Okay,"_ said Carol.

Amy's heart skipped a beat. "Okay?"

" _You can stay the weekend at Taylor's,"_ Carol clarified. _"But I want you to call if anything happens. If you need anything. Understand?"_

"Uh, sure. Yeah. I got it."

" _Have a good weekend, Amy."_

It was said in a neutral tone, a little wooden and uneasy, like it was unfamiliar. Amy barely noticed, and even then, only because she couldn't remember the last time Carol had said something like that to her.

"Uh, yeah. Thanks. You, too."

The line went dead with a soft _click_. Amy tapped the End Call icon on her phone.

"Well?" Lisa asked, smiling, as though she didn't already know the answer. Fucking Thinkers.

"She said I could stay."

Lisa's smile flickered a little. "Yeah." She sighed. "I figured she would."

Amy crossed her arms over her chest. "You don't want me here?"

"To be frank?" Lisa shook her head. "No, I don't. It's not that I don't appreciate what you're doing, Amy, I just don't think you need to be a part of this."

 _Well, fuck you, too, Lisa._

"Taylor's my friend," Amy said flatly.

"And this is about me," Lisa replied, "getting free from a megalomaniac. Who has, by this point, by hook or by crook, enlisted the help of what is probably a high level Thinker. There's no part of this where I either want or need to get you involved."

Amy scowled. "Taylor's my _friend_ ," she repeated.

"Exactly," said Lisa. "You're here for _Taylor_ , not _me_. You'll excuse me if I don't find that particularly comforting."

"I'm not going to let you _die_ right in front of me or anything," Amy snapped.

Lisa grinned.

"No. But you wouldn't mourn me if I _did_ die. You don't have any _investment_ in this whole thing succeeding, except how it might hurt Taylor if we don't. You don't have a reason to care, otherwise."

Which wasn't entirely untrue, _and fuck you, Lisa, for saying so_. Sure, Amy didn't particularly _like_ Lisa, even though they were both Taylor's friend, and sure, Amy herself wouldn't shed any tears or lose any sleep if Lisa died during this whole debacle, but… But there _was_ more to this than Lisa, wasn't there? More to this than just Taylor, either.

"There's a little girl we need to rescue."

A little girl who had been kidnapped by an asshole who only wanted to use her for her powers — who only _cared_ about her powers, who probably didn't care _what_ he had to do to get her to use them for his benefit. Rescuing that little girl… _That_ was a good enough reason to care, wasn't it? _That_ was plenty of reason to be _invested_ in the success of this thing against Coil.

Lisa's grin widened. "There we go. That's not a bad start. Why do you care, though?"

Why _did_ she care? Why should she risk her life for some girl she'd never met by going into the lair of a heavily armed supervillain with his own private army?

"Because…" Amy began slowly. Something stirred in her chest. Something she'd forgotten, lost, somewhere along the way. "Because it's the right thing to do."

Because it was the sort of thing a _hero_ did. Rescuing the damsel in distress. Saving the princess from the lair of the dragon. In the real world… Yeah. Saving a little girl who'd been kidnapped by a supervillain was just that sort of thing.

And it was something Amy could do, here. Something that it was within her power to do, now. Maybe she wouldn't be punching out the supervillain herself, and that was fine, but rescuing that little girl? _That_ was something Amy could do, something that didn't involve sitting in the hospital and curing cancer for the thousandth time.

Amy could finally, _finally_ be a _real_ hero.

For an instant, Lisa looked bewildered, like she hadn't expected that answer, then, she threw her head back and laughed.

"Wow," she said, still grinning. "I really underestimated you, Amy. I really did. Okay. I _still_ can't say I'm really comfortable with this whole thing, but I'll concede, here."

"…Okay. Good."

Amy wasn't sure what else to say to that. "Thank you?" didn't seem like it fit.

"Alright." Lisa stood off of the toilet seat and smoothed out her skirt. "Let's see if we can't find some paper clips and spare change."

"You know, you never did say what those are supposed to be for."

Lisa just grinned and flashed Amy the golden amulet around her neck. "What'd you think _this_ is made out of?"

Amy blinked, stunned. "Really?"

"Haven't you been paying attention?" Lisa asked. "Taylor's powers are _bullshit_."

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

 **Watch out, Amy. That's hell you're about to walk into.**

 **So! The month-long hiatus is over, and we begin arc 6 with a quick look into what the girls were going to be up to during the weekend of planning.**

 **This was actually shoved into the lineup really late in the planning stages. Like, I was halfway done with 6.1 when I thought, "You know, I should probably give everyone a look at what our favorite girls were up to." As a result, this was born.**

 **Here, we get another look at Reasonable!Carol Dallon. Or, well, as reasonable as she's ever likely to get.**

 **Next up, the proper start of arc 6, Tyranny. The start of our adventure down into the dark.**

 **As always, read, review, and enjoy.**

 **And for early access to chapters and bonus content:**

 **p a treon . com (slash) James_D_Fawkes**


	46. Tyranny 6-1

**Tyranny 6.1**

"Are you _sure_?"

I rolled my eyes.

"Yes, Lisa," I hissed back at her. "For the thousandth time, I'm _sure._ "

"Okay, okay," she whispered back. "Just checking."

"What's got you so wound up?" Amy murmured.

"We _really_ can't fuck this up," said Lisa. " _Really_ can't. If we don't get the right Coil in the right timeline, then he might just decide to blow his base sky high with us in it. I'd _really_ like it if that didn't happen. And if I could wear some of my own clothes, again, because no offense, Taylor? But after this, I'm taking you _clothes shopping_."

"I don't see what's wrong with my clothes," I muttered.

I _liked_ my clothes. Sure, they weren't as nice as Emma's designer skirts or name brand tees, and maybe Lisa, as a supervillain, was more used to stuff like that, but they were comfortable, functional, and didn't run me a week's supply of food and drink to get.

" _Exactly_ ," Lisa answered. "Anyway. I _really_ wish we could've visited the loft first so we could do this in costume, but he's _definitely_ got someone watching it. That's if he hasn't spun some yarn to Br — to Grue and the others about how I've betrayed the team and sold them out to the heroes or whatever."

"It's not like _I'm_ in costume, either," Amy mumbled.

"No, but you're part of New Wave, and your secret identity is already public knowledge. Your costume is just a formality. Me, I gotta make do with _this_ garbage."

She fingered the strip of black cloth that had molded itself to her face — a basic piece of magic that had required the effort of seconds — in a crude approximation of a cliche domino mask. Eyeholes had been expertly woven into it with a skill and precision that was utterly inhuman, although it was still something simple and uncomplicated. It was little more than a bandana, even if it was an exceedingly elegant one.

When you had Arachne, the seamstress who had outdone the Goddess of Weaving, that was only natural. Her Noble Phantasm, Argaleiós Arákhnēs, was what had allowed me to make not only that strip of cloth to hide Lisa's identifying freckles, but also the cloak of invisibility that the three of us were huddled under.

And all it had taken was an old, unused bed sheet.

After that, Medea had taken care of the rest.

"If you don't like it, you don't _have_ to wear it," I told her lowly.

"Well, it's better than _nothing_ ," she admitted. "But I _really_ wish we'd had the time and material for you to make me a whole costume. Not many people can claim their wardrobe was made by a mythological seamstress, after all."

"Your priorities are really strange," said Amy.

"I'm trying _really_ hard not to focus on how badly we're fucked if this whole thing goes wrong," Lisa confessed. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her nervously run a hand through her hair — left loose, compared to the braid or ponytail she usually wore when in her civilian identity. "Really, _really_ hard. It's not like there's enough interesting stuff around to play a game of I Spy. Plus, that'd be _too_ distracting, and the last thing we want is to accidentally run into one of his patrols, because if he even _thinks_ we might be coming, then he's definitely got someone patrolling the site in secret, and —"

"Lisa," I interrupted, "calm down."

"You're starting to ramble," Amy added.

And it wasn't helping, because all it did was make _me_ start to think about how this could go wrong. About what would happen if he figured out we were after him. About what he would do when he _did_ figure it out and escaped. About how he might respond, how he might try and strike back at us, now that his first, direct attempt failed.

Of _course_ he'd go after Dad. Somehow, miraculously, I'd managed to convince him to stay home all weekend, constantly assuring him that he wasn't too "uncool" for three teenage girls, but all it would take to get him outside the protections of my home was for Coil to call and claim he had me hostage, and Dad would go rushing out to come to my rescue — and right into Coil's hands. If he and his men figured out that Dad was protected from bullets just like Lisa and me, or hell, even if he decided not to waste the ammo once he had Dad in his clutches, then all it would take was one guy with a combat knife.

Dad wasn't a trained mercenary, after all.

And what _if_ he decided to blow his base up with the three of us inside? Now that Lisa had mentioned it, it made _way too much sense_ that he _would_ have a self-destruct set up in his bases. If I had enough warning, I could get the right hero and survive, but Lisa and Amy would be _fucked_. I'd lose them, just like that, and there was no way I could simply take that in stride. I wanted to be a better person than that, than _her_ , but if he took away both of my friends like _that_ , then I… I…

I would most certainly kill him.

My hands curled into fists and I swallowed thickly.

Viciously, horrifically, in all the ways I knew he feared. I would ruthlessly grind him beneath my heel, and then I would kill him without remorse and spread his name as a lesson for why you didn't hurt the people I cared for.

Because I, better than most, knew the lengths to which I could be driven. I, better than most, knew exactly how far I could go and exactly what I could convince myself to sacrifice, if the situation drove me to it.

And that was why I absolutely didn't want to become that person.

 _Thank you, Lisa, for making me think about it_.

"Are you _sure_ we're going the right way?"

"Lisa," Amy muttered, exasperated.

"Hey, the _last_ thing we want to do is get lost! It's taking us long enough to get there, what with how we all have to huddle under this thing, so I'd prefer if we didn't take a wrong turn at Albuquerque, you know?"

I let out a breath through my nose, grateful for the distraction, and reached with that extra sense down the connection to my familiar, Lunette, the sparrow made of crystal who I had quite forgotten about until yesterday. I tugged on that bond, waited for it to "pull taut," and the moment it did, I looked almost reflexively over in her direction. I couldn't actually _see_ her, we were still too far away for that, with plenty of buildings still standing between us, but I had a rough sense of the exposed steel girder she was perched upon and where it was located.

"Not too far," I murmured quietly. "Another couple of blocks, yet, but we're getting close."

I looked down at my watch. Twelve-fifteen in the morning. Dad had already been in bed and asleep when we'd left almost two hours ago. We had to be back before he got up around six-thirty.

Lisa blew out a breath between her lips. "Alright. And you're absolutely sure that we're going to the right place?"

I rolled my eyes. "For the last time, Lisa, _yes_ , I'm _sure_."

"Can you stop asking?" said Amy snippily. One, jittery hand curled and made an abortive move towards her mouth, as though to take a drag from a cigarette that wasn't there. "It's not like the answer ever changes."

"Sorry," said Lisa. "Sorry. Just… Yeah. Nervous."

I fidgeted a little. So was I. In fact, I didn't much like this entire plan, if I was honest. Unfortunately, without access to the ley lines, a lot of my options for getting to Coil using other methods simply weren't feasible, and even if I'd been so inclined, I wouldn't have dared risk just blowing him up, base and all, when there was an eleven-year-old girl who was probably secreted away somewhere inside.

Plan B wasn't much better. I just had to hope Plan A worked and we could get in and out without being noticed by any of his mercs.

It took us another twenty minutes before the base was in sight, the bare skeleton of a twenty storey high rise, with naked steel beams exposed to the open air. At the bottom, where the ground floor would go, there was an expanse of gravel laid out, and a fleet of construction vehicles that had been left for use at a later date. A tall, mesh fence stretched around the site, encircling the property to keep out anyone who thought to poke their nose unwanted or try to steal any of the tools.

"Oh," Lisa murmured. "So, it's _this_ one."

"You recognize it?"

 _Thank God._ If it had turned out to be one of the bases Lisa hadn't ever been to, well, I didn't want to imagine how much time we'd have wasted — how much time he would have had to slip away and escape — wandering around, trying to find him. Even with her power, I didn't like the risk that had to it.

I felt the cloak shift as Lisa nodded. "One of his newest ones. If I remember right, he's still getting things settled in, although it's basically done."

I worried my bottom lip a little. How many bases did this guy _have_? What kind of money could he throw around that he could afford not only to finance a team of villains and an army of mercenaries, but also build _multiple_ underground bunkers on what was probably prime real estate? And if he had that kind of money in the first place, why did he even bother, instead of retiring to a beach somewhere and sipping expensive wines for the rest of his life?

That wasn't important. The important thing was…

"Can you get us through?"

"Easily," she confirmed. "I don't know where _everything_ is, but I remember enough about the way to his office to get us there without trouble."

"Good."

A big, sturdy padlock held the fence's gate closed when we got to it, and I turned to Lisa and held out one hand.

"Key?"

"Oh," she said and started rummaging through her pockets. "Right. Yeah. Hang on a sec."

I'd made a total of three things over the past few days, not counting the band over Lisa's face, all of them rushed and probably not nearly as good as I would've honestly preferred them to be. Naturally, one of them was the pendant Amy now had, a mirror of Lisa's, that did exactly what ours did: protected her from bullets and projectiles. No matter what Amy said, there was no way I would have brought her along without it.

Secondly, of course, was the invisibility cloak, rewoven out of a bedsheet by Arachne. It had taken the longest of the three, and in fact, I hadn't been sure I would get it done on time for tonight. Somehow, though, I had, and I'd even managed to get a solid four hours of rest in my bed — the only reason I was even a functional human being, right now. How good the cloak was, I couldn't be sure. It was a rush job, so while it definitely covered the visible spectrum, I wasn't anywhere near certain it was absolute enough to cover infrared and other sensors of that type.

And there was no way it covered sound or smell, so if Coil had motion sensors, the jig was up, either way. I didn't exactly like it, but there was nothing I could do about it.

"Here," Lisa mumbled, handing over an innocuous silver key.

"Thanks," I replied quietly as I took it.

It really didn't look like anything special. It was just a spare house key, one of mine that had been sacrificed in order to become a tool for just this moment. If someone were to see it, they wouldn't think anything about it, and even I might forget about it later and continue to use it as an ordinary key.

But it wasn't, anymore.

I crouched down, and Lisa and Amy followed me onto their knees as I cautiously lifted up the front of the cloak so that I could reach the padlock. If Coil had any secret cameras pointed in this direction, I'd just have to hope that no one monitoring them was paying enough attention to notice me.

Once I had the padlock in hand, I took a second to offer a silent prayer — to who, I didn't know, just as long as they were listening — and I carefully pushed my key into the keyhole.

It slid in without resistance.

I let out a breath through my nose. So far, so good.

Slowly, gently, I turned the key, and through the undersuit of my costume, I could feel the tumblers shift and move beneath my fingers, until, finally — _click!_ — the shackle snapped up and open. I felt my lips tug into a grin.

It worked.

Lisa let out a low, relieved chuckle, and even Amy made a breathy, quiet sound that might have been a laugh.

"Have I told you your powers are bullshit, recently?" asked Lisa. "Because they _so_ are."

"You're telling me," I murmured.

The third thing I'd made was a "skeleton key," so to speak. It was a device designed for the sole purpose of opening locks, no matter how complicated or complex. Whether it was a padlock or a bank vault, as long as it counted as a lock, this key should open it.

Now, whether that meant _electronic_ locks or _biometric_ locks, like the kind that required a password or a retinal scan, for _those_ , I had no idea. Maybe if I'd have enough time to put the effort into making this thing _really_ good, rather than just "good enough" for what we needed, it could do something like that. Something this low quality and half-assed, though? Probably not.

"Here." I handed the key back to Lisa, and she took it and stuffed it back into one of her pockets.

I was the only one in costume, mostly because I was the only one who had it readily available. Unfortunately, my costume did not come with pockets, a frustrating inconvenience. Wherever my powers came from, couldn't they have included at least a pair of them in my pants?

I stood slowly as the cloak fell back into place, and Lisa and Amy followed me back up. Then, I reached out and carefully pushed open the gate.

The squealing hinges were like sirens in the otherwise quiet lot, and I cringed, hoping that no one noticed the racket, and pushed until the gap was just wide enough for each of use to squeeze through. For a silent moment, I waited, listening for someone coming to investigate, but there was nothing. All I heard was the sound of my own breathing and the _thump-thump-thump_ of my own anxious heart.

"You first, Amy," I whispered.

"Right."

Sidling sideways, she stepped carefully through the gap, sucking in a breath of air as her chest and stomach passed the steel bar that framed the gate. The last thing we needed, I thought, was for the loose fabric to get snagged on the fence.

"Careful with the cloak," I cautioned, following her closely.

"I'm being careful," she assured me.

I started squeezing myself through, and to my left, I could feel Lisa doing the same as closely behind me as she dared. Luckily, I was in better shape than Amy, and though I'd never say it out loud, being basically flat made it much less a chore to get my chest through.

It took only a few seconds to make my way, and Lisa not much longer. When we were through, I closed the gate behind us, wincing as it squealed again, and left it there. As long as no one inspected it too closely, they shouldn't notice the lock was undone.

"Where is it?"

Lisa pointed to a metal hatch, surrounded by a concrete rim, labeled with warnings and bright yellow biohazard signs to ward off anyone too curious for their own good. "Over there."

Amy made a disgusted noise. "That's not what I think it is, is it?"

Good god, I certainly hoped not.

"Yes and no," said Lisa grimly. "No, it's not a sewage pipe, but yes, it's going to smell like shit."

"Great," groused Amy. "I'm going to have to take a _really_ long shower after this."

"You can keep those clothes, too," I muttered. Fortunately, even though Amy was maybe ten or fifteen pounds heavier than me, I liked my clothes to be fairly loose and comfortable, so she hadn't had any trouble slipping into a pair of my jeans and a tee-shirt. "I don't think I'm gonna want them back."

"I might just burn them and be done with it, then."

"Both of you," Lisa promised. "I'm taking both of you shopping. And it'll be on Coil's dime."

For a moment, as we reached the hatch, we fell silent and hesitated. We stood still, looking down at the warning signs depicting biohazard symbols and men in hazmat suits, and it seemed like each of us was waiting for one of the others to take charge.

"Well." Lisa sighed at last. "This is really it, huh?"

"Yeah…" I glanced at her. "You nervous?"

She snorted. It _was_ a stupid question, though.

"We're about to walk into the heavily fortified secret base of an amoral villain with enough money to afford not only his own cape team, but a professionally equipped army of mercenaries. It's entirely possible that this same villain has coerced a high level Thinker — who may, I'll admit, even be more powerful than I am — to work for him, so he probably knows we're coming and has prepared himself accordingly. All of that, and three teenage girls are going to try and bring him down without outside help."

She grinned.

" _Hell yes_ , I'm nervous. But I'm also _way_ past ready to take this sonuvabitch _down_. So let's get this show on the road, huh?"

She reached back into her pocket and pulled out the skeleton key I'd used earlier, then slotted it into the lock on the hatch and turned — with a lot more confidence than I'd had at the gate. When the lock clicked, she stuffed the key back into her pocket and pulled the hatch open.

Amy gagged, and one hand immediately shot up to cover her nose. I couldn't blame her.

"Oh, fuck, that's _rancid_!"

"Yeah," said Lisa. "Really helps sell the 'innocuous drainage hatch' angle, doesn't it?"

It certainly _smelled_ like one. Morbidly, I wondered how many dead animals Coil had left to rot at the bottom just to sell the illusion that there was nothing of interest inside.

"Unfortunately, it's only going to get worse until we get inside the base proper. My advice? Hold your noses shut and think of England on the way down, because this is _not_ going to be pleasant."

She took the lead, and after a bare moment of hesitation, I grimaced, pinched my nostrils shut, and followed. Amy didn't seem any more eager, but she _did_ fall into step behind me.

Like that, we made our way into the dark and took our first steps into the belly of Coil's lair.

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

 **I keep forgetting to update here on FFNet. I don't know _why_ , exactly, but these days, I update on Sufficient Velocity and just don't remember to do it on here, too. Sorry? Anyway...**

 ** _This_ is more of a transitional chapter, this time. Well, it was getting too big, and I was going, "Wait, am I really gonna write _another_ 7k chapter, here?" so I decided to cut it in half. Next week's chapter will be the conclusion where they reach Coil, and as for what happens there...**

 **As always, read, review, and enjoy.**

 **And for early access to chapters and bonus content:**

 **p a treon . com (slash) James_D_Fawkes**


	47. Tyranny 6-2

**Tyranny 6.2**

If I never had to brave such a place again, it would be too soon.

Just as Lisa had said, the smell _did_ get worse and stronger the further we went in, and even holding my nose didn't stop the cloying taste of it in the air from sticking to the back of my tongue. What made it all the harder was that there was literally _nothing_ else to focus on; aside another door we'd passed through, the long hallway was monotonous and completely unremarkable. It looked just like any other storm drain probably did, and perfectly uniform concrete walls did not make for an interesting study.

Hell, even knowing that this _was_ the entrance to a secret base, it almost had me fooled, that was how bare and ordinary it was. There weren't any visible wires or cables, there were no traps, no security cameras tucked flush against the ceiling or hidden in the nooks and crannies. There was nothing at all to suggest there was anything nefarious going on down here, nor that anyone had even _been_ down here since it was first constructed.

Finally, after what seemed like a mile of walking, we entered a small room with a blank, featureless door, completely lacking in external handles or openings. No place to put a key and not even a keypad to enter a password. It was nothing but a gigantic slab with what I imagined were internal hinges. The only other thing in the room was a surveillance camera that I _almost_ didn't see, at first glance.

I turned to Lisa, gestured to the camera, and mouthed, _'Sound?'_

She took a short look at it and then shook her head. "We're good," she whispered. "It's video only."

"Should we take it out?"

Lisa grimaced and sighed. "Admittedly, this is the part where my plans start to get a little…well, vague."

"I don't like the sound of 'vague,'" I said.

"Eh." She wobbled her hand demonstrably. "The problem we have is that this is where it's basically impossible not to get discovered. We take out the camera, we get discovered. We open the door, we get discovered. What we'd have to bet on is that whoever is watching the cameras isn't paying attention. On the other hand, if we wait for a shift change or something, we could _probably_ make it inside like that without anyone noticing, but that could take hours and there's no way of knowing if they'd even open the door for that, so we could be waiting until morning for something that's never going to happen."

"And what about the door itself?" Amy asked. "I'm not really seeing a way in. So unless you've got some kind of trick up your sleeve where we have to tap _Shave and a Haircut_ in a specific spot or something…"

I mumbled an agreement. The door was impressively solid and looked like it was designed to withstand a nuclear blast. While there were certainly heroes — such as Herakles, Gawain, or Siegfried — who could bust it open without much trouble, it kind of defeated the point of doing this quietly if we broke down the door, and without a keyhole or something to interface with the lock, I doubted my amateur skeleton key could do the job.

Lisa, however, wasn't bothered.

"Fortunately, we don't have to worry about any of that, because _I_ …" She reached into her pocket and produced her cell phone, grinning as she waggled it. "…happen to have something that makes this entire thing much easier."

"A cell phone?" Amy asked flatly. "What, does it transmit the password that unlocks the door or something?"

"Better," said Lisa as her grin inched towards her trademark Cheshire. She typed something on her phone, which let out a muted chime when she tapped _send_ — she actually had _service_ down here? "I have something that even Coil probably doesn't expect. Ha!"

In front of us, the large door rumbled and clicked, and then, miraculously, fell open — just enough that we could pry the gap farther so we could slip inside. Lisa turned to Amy and me, triumphant.

"A guy inside," she concluded. "Turns out not everyone in Coil's employ is totally okay with all of his, uh, _business practices_ , considering some of the lines he likes to cross. There's a couple of mostly decent people who got dishonorably discharged and didn't have the option to turn him down. If you can provide enough of a financial incentive to convince them to listen to their conscience, then…"

"You _bribed_ one of Coil's mercs?" Amy whispered incredulously.

Lisa shrugged. "Easier to find which one it'll work on when you have a power like mine." She gestured to the door as she shoved her phone back into her pocket. "We've got about forty-five seconds before the door closes automatically. That's all the time my inside guy could buy us."

Which meant we couldn't afford to sit here and discuss the kind of bullshit Lisa's power let her get away with.

"Right," I muttered. "Let's get going."

Together, we shuffled over to the gap, and through the fabric of the cloak, took hold of the door, then carefully prized it open. The hinges, to my surprise, didn't so much as whimper, but then, with walls made of solid concrete, even the slightest sound probably echoed through the whole place. A secret base would be much harder to keep secret if it made a racket that woke up half the city every time you came and went.

The moment we had it open enough to slip through the gap comfortably, we let go of the door and made our way inside one at a time, just as we had at the gate. The room we entered — blessedly — had none of the utterly hair-curling stench of the outside tunnel, and was constructed of more solid concrete, thick enough it could probably double as a fairly good Endbringer shelter. It had two levels, and we stood atop a series of metal walkways above a lower floor maybe ten or fifteen feet beneath us.

It was surprisingly dark, I thought. The lights had been almost completely shut off, leaving the entire room to be lit only by a few dim floor lights from the level below and a few lamps that had been wired and strapped to the edges of the walkways. It lent an eerie, almost horror movie vibe to the whole place.

As the door swung closed behind us and locked automatically, I frowned down at the next obstacle: the metal walkways.

"How are we going to get through here without alerting the whole base?"

"Very carefully," Lisa muttered. "Roll your foot as you step and we should be able to get through here nearly silently —"

 _BANG_

The sound of a gunshot echoed like thunder through the room, and something slammed into me from the front, catching the fabric of the cloak as it went, then tinkled as it fell to the walkway under my feet.

Lisa swore. "Shit —"

 _BANG-BANG-BANG_ echoed more shots as the three of us dove to the side — Amy and me in one direction and Lisa in the other. The cloak pulled away between us, leaving Lisa completely exposed and Amy as a disembodied torso. As the sudden burst of gunfire came to an equally sudden end, the sound of the bullets clattering to the walkway was deafening in an entirely different way.

I looked towards Lisa, and in spite of the fact that she couldn't see me, her alarmed face turned to mine and our gazes locked.

 _What the fuck?_

Carefully, cautiously, I raised myself up and looked down the hallway immediately across from the door. _BANG-BANG_ came the report of two more shots, but they went wide as I ducked back down, catching the cloak and tearing it halfway off of me. Somehow, they'd been able to see me — but in exchange, I'd also caught sight of the flash from the gun that had shot at me.

I whipped the cloak off — it obviously wasn't working, at this point, so it was more of a hindrance than a help — then tapped Amy and gestured over in Lisa's direction once I had her attention. Then, I flattened myself against the floor and started to crawl over to her, and just behind me, I could feel Amy doing the same.

"What now?" Amy asked once we got over to her.

Lisa grimaced. "Well, sneaking through the base is obviously out."

Her sour tone told me all of the things she didn't say.

"We're on a time limit, now," she continued. "Which means the only real thing we can do, aside from retreat and try another day —"

"— is force our way through," I concluded.

Lisa nodded grimly. The smile that curled her lips lacked any trace of mirth. "Got a hero who'll make this easier on us?"

I considered my options, for a moment. The different heroes I could use to get us through here and to Coil, with who knew how many mercs between us and them.

"I have a couple in mind, yeah."

"Think you can get us out of this mess, then? You're in the lead, now, Chief."

I didn't answer her directly. Instead, I got my legs underneath me and pushed myself up to stand. Immediately, the rapid _BANG_ of more gunfire started up, again, and rounds pelted me like fingers poking at my chest and arms. I didn't pay them any mind, because even if it was possible that they could eventually overcome my amulet, I didn't intend to wait long enough to see if they even could.

As I had so many times before, I reached out and through myself, into the vast halls of legend where resided the heroes that my power called upon. Only one rose up and offered himself to me, and I stretched out, grasped him, and pulled him into myself.

"Set. Install."

My first instinct was to reach for one of my invincible heroes, someone like Siegfried or Herakles or Achilles — heroes with Noble Phantasms based in some form of invincibility or ability to ignore damage. Even Gawain, if I used his Noble Phantasms right, would have worked just fine for that. Any one of them would have turned me into a walking tank.

However…

My body changed. The long hair that marked me as my mother's daughter shrank back into my head and fanned out, turning silver. I shrank — only an inch. My face morphed and shifted. The clothes that formed my costume expanded, hardened, lengthened, and became a suit of armor, done in purple and deep, navy blues. At last, an enormous shield formed in my hand, so big and so heavy that its bottom rested against the floor.

…none of _those_ heroes protected the precious friends who were standing with me.

I hefted the enormous shield in front of me, then slammed it home with the full weight of its incredible mass — all as though it was as light as a feather.

"Get behind me," I ordered.

Lisa and Amy scrambled to their feet and huddled next to me behind the bulk of my shield, even as more bullets peppered our location — and bounced impotently off the surface of Lord Camelot without leaving so much as a scratch.

Of course. This was Lord Camelot, after all, the shield of Sir Galahad of the Round Table. It was an embodiment of that castle and its towering walls, built from the Round Table itself, and as long as the heart remained steadfast and true, it could never be broken. To imagine that mere bullets would be enough to even scuff it was laughable.

Light flashed suddenly, the air sizzled in its wake, and I had to blink my eyes as the searing yellow afterimage of a laser — dissipating like so much rain water against my shield — burned itself into my retinas. Even with Galahad's speed, I hadn't been able to see it before it hit.

"Fuck," hissed Lisa. "That's a laser! Coming from…some kind of barrel attachment, Tinkertech, obviously. They _all_ have it! "

"What the fuck?" Amy demanded. "What kind of money does this guy even _have_? Fucking…an army of mercenaries, funding a team of capes, making super secret bases, and he can afford to shell out for _Tinkertech_ weapons, now, too?"

Light flashed — again, again, _again_ , accompanying the rolling beat of gunfire, and they all stopped impotently as they reached Lord Camelot. I looked over the edge with narrowed eyes, but Galahad had no special vision, and the lighting was poor enough, and even poorer down that hallway and with the lasers messing things up, that I could only catch glimpses of the enemy when they fired their weapons.

At least six, I saw. Probably more.

"Bond villain, remember?" said Lisa. "If you have to ask 'how much money does he have,' then the answer is probably 'more than enough.'"

"How are we supposed to get through, then?" asked Amy. "Bullets are one thing — and I'm still trying to get used to the idea that this flimsy piece of gold around my neck makes me bulletproof — but if they're slinging fucking Tinkertech lasers around, I don't want to push my fucking luck!"

"How should I know?" snapped Lisa. "I'm a Thinker, not a Brute! If you shoot me full of holes, I don't regenerate!"

We could probably sit there until the mercs ran out of ammo, or whatever counted as ammo for those lasers of theirs. In a game of attrition, Lord Camelot would always win. However, we _did_ have a time limit, and if we took too long, if we waited them out, then Coil would be long gone and this all would've been for nothing.

Nothing for it, then.

"I'm going." I glanced back at my two friends. "Stay here. As long as you're behind the shield, you'll be protected."

They both did a double-take.

"Wait, what?"

"What are you —"

But before they could mount a protest or try to argue, I was gone, ducking smoothly around my makeshift barrier and into the line of fire, and once I was clear, I _moved_.

There was no better way to describe it. Siegfried had been fast, like a comet, as inexorable as a mountain and racing along at a constant speed. He was a hurricane, all harsh wind and unstoppable strength, pounding down before you realized he was upon you. Galahad, it seemed to me, was _faster_. He was like lightning, an incredible flow of motion and power from one point to another, a raging river fed by torrential rain. He didn't dash, he didn't sprint, he simply _moved_.

In an instant, I crossed the walkway, soared down the hallway, and was among the crowd of mercenaries, bullets pinging uselessly against the shield of Galahad's power that I'd gathered around me like a second skin. My fist was already in motion by the time I'd come to a stop — _CRACK_ — and with a thunderous sound audible even over the staccato roar of gunfire, I snapped one man's rifle in half with a single well-placed strike of my fist.

"Shit!"

"What the fuck!?"

"How did she — !?"

A second strike hit the first man's solar plexus, driving the air from his lungs — but not killing him. As he collapsed to his knees, I was already moving onto the second man right next to him, effortlessly pushing away the barrel of the gun that was swinging in my direction, and I grabbed his other arm by the wrist and executed a perfect hip throw. _Twist_ — _crack_ — _scream_ , and his shoulder was dislocated.

The thing about the hand to hand martial arts employed by the Knights of the Round Table — and probably knights of the era of plate armor in general, now that I thought of it — was that it focused _way_ more on disabling strikes than on lethal ones. And that made sense, because cutting or punching through reinforced metal plates was _really hard_ to do. Instead, the goal became striking at vulnerable points, at forcing your enemy into a disadvantageous position where you had easy access to stab into the gaps between plates with your sword.

This was almost pitifully easy, I thought as I spun around and stopped a spray of bullets from another merc by pressing my palm against the muzzle of his gun. I took hold of the barrel, then used my speed, strength, and leverage to twist the shoulder strap and pull his arm tight against his back. A quick blow to the back of one knee weakened his stance, and I threw him into the first man, who was still wheezing as he emptied his stomach onto the walkway.

A fourth swung his rifle around to shoot me, but I stepped forward and pushed the barrel upwards, sending his shots into the concrete ceiling. A yank pulled him off balance and tore the gun from his hands, and I slid smoothly behind him, looping the strap around one arm, and then grabbing the other and trapping it, too. In seconds, I had him trussed up with the strap of his own weapon.

Number five, in contrast, came at me with a big, wicked-looking combat knife — and I trapped the blade between my thumb and fingers, then snapped it off at the hilt like it was nothing more than a twig. Before he even had time to be surprised, I dropped the blade, grabbed his wrist, and did another hip throw, planting him face first into the walkway. While he was stunned, I took the wrist still in my hand, pulled his arm behind his back until it _hurt_ , then tied the strap of his gun around it, such that if he tried to pull his arm free, he'd choke himself.

The last guy got a shot off before I could turn to him, but the laser glanced off like everything else had, ineffective. A quick, light jab to his throat brought him down, gagging, and while he clutched at what would wind up being a very painful bruise, I took his gun away and snapped it in half over my knee.

Lisa and Amy were still huddled behind my shield when I made it back over to them, though Lisa was brave enough to peek out over the edge to check it was me.

"How many?" she asked immediately.

"Only six," I replied.

Amy peeked out, too. "Holy fuck," she breathed. "That can't have been more than ten or fifteen seconds!"

Lisa grimaced. "That means the rest of them are camped out by his office door."

"How many?" I asked this time.

"At least two squads," she answered. "Maybe…ten to twenty more mercs. The rest are spread out at his other bases, but the biggest concentration is always at the same base he is."

I frowned and considered my shield for a moment, then nodded to myself and let Galahad go. "Release."

In an instant, I was back to normal and Lord Camelot was gone, leaving a divot in the floor. Lisa, who no longer had something to hide behind, blinked at me, surprised.

"You're not going to keep it?"

"I've been using my powers pretty extensively the past few days," I answered truthfully. "The longer and harder I use an Install, the harder it is on me, so I'm rationing them right now so I don't faint the moment we're done, here."

I was still feeling pretty good, in those terms. I wasn't noticing any fatigue, yet, so I could probably pretty comfortably keep using my Installs, at least as long as I didn't get into a protracted battle like with Lung.

Even so, the last seventy-two hours had been the most concentrated use of Installs I'd had since getting my powers, and using Galahad's Mana Defense skill would get pretty draining pretty fast. I didn't want to risk it.

Lisa grimaced. "Right. You still good to go?"

"I'm fine."

"Then we keep going." She jerked her head in the direction of the hall. "Coil's office is that way."

I led the way, just because I was undoubtedly the most durable of our group, with Lisa's hand on my shoulder to offer me silent directions. We rolled our feet as we walked, carefully but quickly, and made our way down the hallway and past the moaning mercs I'd already disabled.

The base was bigger than I'd initially assumed, based upon that first wide, open area at the beginning. The hallways split off at the end, then turned at right angles to, I could only imagine, sweep around and link back to that main area. There was a spiral staircase, the kind made of perforated metal boards, off to one side, but Lisa didn't direct us down it so Coil's office must have been on the first floor.

We were coming up to another intersection when she abruptly squeezed my shoulder and pulled us to a halt. When I turned to look at her, she pressed a finger to her lips in a shushing gesture and made several hand motions that I interpreted to mean that Coil's office was down the hallway to the right.

I took a steadying breath and reached into and through myself again.

Silently, without saying a word, I Installed Medea, again, rather than Galahad.

As Lisa took a step back, pulling Amy with her, I stepped forward and around the corner.

"Ἄργος."

A shimmering, glass-like barrier appeared in front of me, just as a volley of purple lasers shot forth, aimed at me. They _pinged_ off of it with a chime-like sound, followed immediately by a hail of gunfire from conventional bullets. My shield spell absorbed the hits like they were nothing.

Of course it did. This spell was comparable in strength to Herakles' impenetrable skin. Breaking it would require something much more powerful than some bullets and a few lasers.

I gestured with one hand and cast my next spell.

"Ἄτλας Πάντα."

In an instant, all of the gathered mercs froze as the air pressing down on their bodies suddenly became as a physical force, trapping them in place. Calling it "like molasses" would be an understatement; it was more like a steel mold now held them where they were, unable to do more than breathe. They couldn't even have pulled the triggers on their guns.

With the enemy immobilized, I gathered more of Medea's power and incanted my second spell.

"Ῠ̔́πνος Πάντα."

Instantly, they started dropping, muscles relaxing, eyes drooping, bodies sagging in place, held up by my previous spell, as my second commanded them to sleep. Several managed to hold on for a scant few seconds, fighting against the pull, struggling to keep their eyes open and stay awake, but it was a useless fight from the start. One by one, even those who hadn't immediately fallen began to fall, until at last, all of the mercs were asleep, frozen upright.

With a wave of my hand, the first spell was released and they all collapsed bonelessly to the floor.

Truthfully, tactics like this were something I would have preferred to use for subduing people, especially the normal human types who didn't have super-strength or abnormally robust bodies. One of the reasons I hadn't tried with Bakuda was because I hadn't known exactly what she was capable of and what she might try to pull off, whether it would even _work_ or if she had some kind of Tinkertech contingency that would blow up in my face — literally.

I hadn't wanted to gamble on people's lives — _innocent_ people's lives — with the possibility that it might not work. Or worse, that it _would_ , but backfire horrifically.

Here, though, there were only mercenaries who had willingly thrown their lot in with someone like Coil. I had no such worries.

"What'd you do?" Amy asked curiously.

"Put them all to sleep," I replied. "A relatively simple spell, really. Simpler and…probably much safer than anesthesia. They'll wake up later without any side effects or anything, at least."

"How long will that last?" asked Lisa.

I frowned.

"It depends. Against trained, disciplined ex-soldiers and mercenaries… Maybe an hour."

In truth, I had no idea. A spell like this, something that attacked the mind more than anything else, could be resisted with enough willpower. It would be easier or harder depending on whether it was expected or not, so someone mustering all of their might to stay awake and fight the spell could even throw it off completely, and even those who couldn't might only be affected for a few minutes if they still succumbed, but if it was a surprise attack, then it would be doubly effective.

Someone like Alexandria or Eidolon or Legend, or someone with a strong will like Armsmaster, or even powerful enough guys like Lung, they might actually be able to shrug it off after a brief moment of drowsiness.

On the other hand, when the measuring stick was _Herakles_ and other prominent Greek heroes, who would have barely noticed it, it was much harder to figure out whether _any_ real person could resist it at all, let alone ignore it outright.

I let out a breath — "Release." — and became Apocrypha again. I looked over at Lisa and gestured to the door that stood just beyond the pile of mercs. "You ready?"

Lisa hesitated, then her lips pulled tight and she nodded. "Yeah."

We went down the hallway, carefully stepping over the downed mercs, and when we arrived at the closed door, Lisa pulled out my skeleton key and unlocked it, then pushed the door open and revealed, in all his glory, the costumed form of Coil, sitting at a surprisingly ordinary desk with a computer.

He was underwhelming, in the end. I'd been expecting…ugliness. Scars. Missing fingers or limbs. A monacle or a shaved head, with tattoos of snakes all over. A physically imposing body. The sorts of things people associated with villains in Bond movies or stereotypical megalomaniacs in one of Earth Aleph's Schwarzenegger action movies.

Instead, he was the exact opposite. Small. Not short, really, but thin and wiry, the sort of skeletal thinness that seemed about two steps shy of starving to death. I could even see the outlines of each individual rib through his costume. Even his costume was simple and uninspiring, a minimalist black bodysuit with a single, undetailed white snake that slithered up and around his head. Later on, I found myself thinking that his smallness as a man accurately reflected his smallness as a person.

When we stepped inside, he was frozen, rigid — with fear, with surprise? I didn't know, and I couldn't see any part of his face that would give it away — hands curled tightly around the armrests of his plush office chair.

"Heya, Bossman," Lisa said gleefully. "Surprised to see me? Alive?"

He didn't respond, still rigid and frozen. I stepped forward and he jerked, lurching back in his chair as though he'd been punched.

"Wait," he said, panicking, "wait, I can be of use to you! I have money, influence — an in with the PRT! I can… I can clean up the Boat Graveyard, hire the Dockworkers! You'll never want for anything ever again!"

I just stepped closer and prepared to enact my curse.

"Coil," I began, voice heavy with the weight of centuries, "I've beaten your agents, I've beaten your defenses, I've beaten _you_. By right of conquest, I demand these boons —"

 _BANG_

And red blood spurted across his desk.

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

 **Next week is the Coil interlude, and you'll get to see _exactly_ what caused that reaction at the end. **

**As for the invisibility cloak, there's actually a number of ways you can get around it. Even the Cloth of Concealment, Hade's Cap of Invisibility, wouldn't actually protect you from other methods of detection, because it only makes you _invisible_ and hides the emanations of magical energy, so things like sonar and infrared are still completely valid methods of detecting someone so hidden. **

**I know some of you are gonna be tired of Taylor being so nonlethal all the time, but this is something I've been establishing as part of her character from arc 1, and we're getting very close to revealing the reason _why_.**

 **As always, read, review, and enjoy.**

 **And for early access to chapters and bonus content:**

 **p a treon . com (slash) James_D_Fawkes**


	48. Interlude 6-a: Quantum Liner Collapse

**Interlude 6.a: Quantum Liner Collapse**

Coil was used to losing.

It came with the territory, really. Luck and chance, variances in skill, tiny, minute details, even down to what a given hero might have eaten for lunch or dinner that caused them to slow down or speed up or take breaks during their patrols — anything at all could have drastic effects on how a given venture of his might go, how a scenario he enacted may pan out.

Traffic accidents that had occurred when his men turned left onto Wabash rather than going straight on Washington, people who had died — sometimes even Wards or Protectorate heroes — because of small, second-or-two delays, times when the Undersiders had been killed or captured because of an unforeseen complication or change in patrol schedules — all of those things and more, he'd seen cause his plans to go up in flames.

Coil was used to losing, because he lost _often_ and _catastrophically_.

The difference was that, for Coil, no loss had to be _permanent_. With his power, he could flip the tables and recast the die so that every loss was wiped away as though it had never happened. He had the power to overturn fate itself and command destiny, and it was by doing so that he had gotten to where he was, so very close now to his ultimate end goal of ruling Brockton Bay in all but name.

Coil _always_ made the right choice.

And when he didn't, well, it had never actually happened, had it?

Lately, however, that hadn't been true. A mistake or two here and there was acceptable, of course — his power really was better suited to short term risks, and he freely admitted (if only to himself) that some things went wrong in the longer term, farther out than he was comfortable stretching a single split — but his acquisition of Dinah Alcott was _supposed_ to reduce the frequency of that, to give him a surety of course that would _let_ him run those longer timelines and maximize his effectiveness even in his shorter, more common ones.

Except it _hadn't_ happened.

Largely, of course, it had turned out as he wanted it to. He could ask his pet, his Dinah, a brace of questions to fine tune a course of action, and then take that action — or not take it, if the odds of success were too low — with a surety, if not quite a certainty, that opened up entirely new avenues of maneuvering for his end game.

Except. Except, except, _except_. _Except_ when Apocrypha became involved. The new Trump on the block, whose powers had been left frightfully vague even in the toppest of top secret PRT files. The only thing anyone had written down on paper or filed in the PRT's official files was her Trump designation and a brief, unhelpful description of her ability to use "powersets."

And whenever she and her ill-defined powers got involved, _something_ went wrong. Not _always_ , not as long as she wasn't pushed and didn't have cause to start pulling out one of her powersets, but after the time his actions had accidentally dragged her into a fight with _Hookwolf_ , after — against all predictions to the contrary and a timeline he'd had close where Bakuda had set off enough bombs to destroy _half the city_ — she had _survived_ her encounter with Bakuda _unscathed_ , any time she became involved in a protracted battle, he'd been forced to cancel the timeline. To not do so would leave him entirely too vulnerable to the possibility that she had done _something_ to make it unreliable.

It had, at least, answered the question of whether or not his powers were simulation or the creation of actual timelines.

Even his _pet_ had been affected by whatever it was that made Apocrypha so inscrutable, sometimes giving him nonsensical answers instead of numbers or numbers that swung between absolutes that would give a statistician _nightmares_. One-hundred percent, a perfect zero, a flat fifty, even "purple" or "hazlenut" — the moment Apocrypha became involved, _those_ were the sort of answers he received.

Worse, the effect seemed to be _spreading_. Now, his _Tattletale_ was starting to become unpredictable, as well, throwing off even more of his timelines, making any split suspect and susceptible to faulty results… He'd had to bench the Undersiders, just so that he could get _anything_ done without worrying about inaccuracies.

It had been hard, the decision he'd eventually reached. His Tattletale was a very useful asset, and her power had been almost indispensable in a number of his ventures, particularly when it came to gathering information and discovering identities.

But no asset was absolutely irreplaceable, and between his powers and his pet, his Tattletale was a more acceptable sacrifice. Not an entirely expendable one, but more acceptable.

So, he'd set his plan in motion. Two snipers, picked from his most competent and least squeamish mercenaries, set to take both of his problems out at once. The interference of Vista and Glory Girl had been a surprise, but ultimately not one that was worth stopping for.

It _should_ have been over, then. _Should_ have. His marksmen had reported in their success, he'd chosen to keep that timeline, and it was all supposed to be over.

Until his teams had returned to base, informed him of their failure to eliminate or even _secure_ their targets, and Coil had been left to wonder how things had still gone _wrong_.

From there, there'd only been a handful of options. Apocrypha and his Tattletale had both disappeared off the radar in the aftermath — Apocrypha, Taylor Hebert, presumably, to her home, and his Tattletale…

He'd spent the better part of a day looking for her. Timeline after timeline, used up until there was nothing more to gain, then discarded. He'd scoured the city, discreetly at first, checking the Loft with the other Undresiders, but though her clothes and her costume and even her laptop were all still there, untouched, she hadn't been there. Then, he'd checked the safehouse she'd thought she was hiding from him, but she hadn't been there, either.

When being discreet turned up nothing, he'd gone with more overt plans, more direct actions that — if they hadn't been throwaway timelines — would've tipped his hand a whole lot more than he wanted. He'd provoked Faultline, the tattered remnants of the ABB, the warring factions of the E88, even gone ahead with his original plan to release their identities to the public. Anything he could think of that would flush her out.

Nothing.

There'd been no sign of her. It was like she had just _disappeared_.

By the time the sun had set on Saturday afternoon, he'd exhausted every avenue he could imagine short of unleashing _Noelle_ on the city, and he'd discovered neither hide nor hair of his Tattletale, and he found himself at a loss.

Somehow, someway, could she have left the city?

No, he dismissed the idea. No, she wouldn't have. She was too vindictive. Too obsessed with intellectual power plays and trying to prove she was the smartest person in the room. She _wouldn't_ leave the city, she'd come for _him_. How she'd do it, who she'd rope in to help her, he didn't know, although it was entirely possible she'd team up with Apocrypha, somehow, but he _knew_ she needed to feel like she'd gotten one over on him. She needed to feel like she'd _won_.

Coil smiled. How childish and petty his Tattletale was. How predictable.

Saturday night, he slept in one timeline and stayed up in the other, waiting for her to attack, waiting for her to raid his base and come up against his army, but it never came, so he closed the one where he stayed up and kept the one where he slept. A fully rested Thomas Calvert made his way to his home and settled in to get some work done, an insurance policy for the off chance he needed an escape, and meanwhile, in another timeline over, the supervillain Coil reinforced the base he'd chosen for this showdown — the one where Noelle was hidden, just in case.

The rest of the Travelers were split up between his other bases, lying in wait in case his Tattletale chose wrongly. Only Trickster, predictably, stayed behind with Noelle.

And so, the hours ticked by. Waiting. Every hour on the hour, his other bases called to check in, reporting, no, there was no sign of Tattletale. Nothing had changed from the hour before. There was nothing new to report.

From his office, Thomas Calvert watched through his window as the sun rose, peaked, then started to fall. He ate breakfast, lunch, and then dinner, and for Coil, nothing had changed. The clocked ticked ever onward, and even in the outside world, nothing of note occurred. Even the Empire was quiet and docile, as though they, too, were waiting for his Tattletale to make her move.

But Coil was not surprised when the sun set and night fell and still there was only silence and routine. His Tattletale would not attack in broad daylight, where and when he could see her coming. It was not in her nature to be so direct. No, she'd come in the night, like a thief, when it was hard to see in the dark.

So, he kept waiting. Thomas Calvert went about his life, and as eleven o'clock rolled around, he went about his evening ablutions and climbed into bed, because there was no sense in _both_ of them losing sleep, tonight.

It was around midnight, just as Thomas was starting to fall asleep, that he heard it: a soft, almost inaudible _click_.

Instantly, he was wide awake, frozen in bed as his heart shuddered to a halt. Every muscle tightened and clenched, and he stared into the dark, wide-eyed and breathless.

It _couldn't_ be. He'd been so _careful_. No clues, no hints, nothing to give him away, so there should be absolutely no _way_ his Tattletale could have figured it out.

His hand reached up and carefully grasped the pistol he kept on his nightstand, and slowly, quietly, he slid out of bed like a snake.

No, it couldn't be Tattletale, so it must be an ordinary burglar. A petty thief who had managed to choose his home completely by accident, nothing more. Nothing to be worried about. In fact, his alarm should be going off right about…

Now…?

Nothing.

Thomas swallowed and took in a slow, deep breath as his heart thumped away in his chest, then flicked the safety off of his gun. Cautiously, measuring each step so that he made no sound as he walked, he made his way across his bedroom, slowly opened the door so that it didn't creak, and started towards the living room.

His eyes had long since adjusted, but there was little light in his house, made worse by the lack of a moon, so he could only see a few feet in front of his face. Unknown shapes loomed out of the dark, but stationary — his furniture. He trained his gun on each for a few seconds, just to be sure, and only moved on when none of them jumped out at him.

He turned the corner and carefully walked up to the security panel, but it showed no signs of tampering. Everything was all green.

Maybe he'd simply imagined it, then. The stress of everything going to his head —

"You know, you probably should've doubled up, if you wanted to be absolutely _sure_."

Thomas _whipped_ around, training his pistol in the direction of the voice — his _Tattletale's_ voice — but a hand reached out of the dark and snatched it away so fast it felt like his finger broke.

"What —"

 _The devil's eyes_.

Thomas gasped and stumbled back against the wall, heart thundering as a pair of big, golden eyes stared out at him from the dark. It was only as his brain caught up with what he was seeing that he realized that they weren't eyes, but lenses, set in a dark mask that covered the top half of a pale face.

The lights suddenly flicked on, and Coil lost his footing as he tried to take a reflexive step backwards and slid to the floor.

"Gah!" someone groaned.

"Fuck!" hissed another.

"My bad, my bad," his Tattletale said.

It took a few moments for his eyes to adjust, and when they did, he was looking up at the forms of three teenage girls. Two were in street clothes, one of which was his Tattletale with a black bandana tied around her eyes in lieu of a proper mask, and the third was in full costume. It took him another moment to remember that the girl in the costume matched the description of the new heroine, Apocrypha, and the other girl with the mousy hair and freckles was the New Wave cape, Panacea.

What? She'd even managed to pull in one of _New Wave_ 's group?

Apocrypha handed a gun — _his_ gun, which she'd obviously wrenched out of his hand — over to his Tattletale, who released the clip and pulled back on the slide to eject the round in the chamber like she'd been handling guns all her life. Then, she tossed it carelessly over her shoulder and grinned at him.

"Hello, Coil."

Shit. How the _hell_ …

Thomas put on his best frightened expression and shrank in on himself. "Wh-who are you people? W-what do you want? J-just…t-take whatever and g-go, please don't h-hurt —"

His Tattletale only laughed. "Yeah, that shit ain't gonna work, here. We know it's you _, Coil_."

 _Damn it_. This stupid bitch just _had_ to catch him off guard.

Thomas Calvert sat straight, took a deep breath, folded his legs beneath him, and clasped his hands in his lap, then coolly, impassively, he looked up at his three assailants.

"Tattletale," he said evenly, calmly, like he was discussing the weather. "I must say, this is a surprise. I wasn't expecting to see you."

"Alive, you mean?" she asked snidely. "That sure was a nasty one, trying to put a fifty caliber shot through my chest. I've heard that termination packages suck it big, but not _that_ big. Usually, they just try to take away your _pension_. Not your breathing rights."

"For fuck's sake, are you gonna _monologue_ at him?" muttered Panacea.

"This guy is responsible for basically _everything_ that went wrong with my life in the past year, _give me this_ ," said his Tattletale, before turning back to him. "Where was I? Oh yeah. Now, bad enough you tried to do it to _me_ , then I heard you tried to do it to a friend of mine, too."

She gestured to Apocrypha, who grimaced.

"I wish I could say it was unexpected, but it's exactly the sort of thing a sociopath like you would do if you decided you needed to."

"It was never anything _personal_ , Tattletale," he told her. "It was simply a matter of business, and the two of you interfering in mine. There was an obstacle — in this case, a pair of them — and I needed them removed. It was never about anything more than that."

It was a bald-faced lie. The hits had been ordered in frustration and desperation, and he'd relished hearing that they were successful, even if that, too, had turned out to be skewed by whatever it was that made Apocrypha throw off his timelines.

"That said," he went on, "I'm always open to new possibilities. I'd be delighted to find room for you in my organization, Apocrypha. Perhaps I should think about contracting the Dockworkers Union for all of my labor? Maybe convince the Mayor to reopen the ferry? I could even sponsor the project myself."

Apocrypha stiffened, but the mask made it nearly impossible to read any part of her expression except her mouth.

"And Tattletale. Perhaps we can renegotiate the terms of our arrangement? If you're finding work with the Undersiders dissatisfying, I'd be perfectly happy to find you another, more _comfortable_ position to fill. Why, you needn't necessarily go out in the field ever again."

Because there was never any rule that said he couldn't have _two_ pets. To be sure, there would be some loss of potency — her powers worked better with firsthand experience, he'd found — but if the option remained to regain use of her, if there was a way to rein her in and stop the discrepancies without disposing of her utterly, then that was a more desirable outcome.

His Tattletale chuckled. "Yeah, you would, wouldn't you? But see, there's a reason why you're not supposed to trust what the snake says. It's because it speaks with a forked tongue."

Quick as a whip, she drew her own pistol, and Thomas had only a moment to be surprised — as the other two girls gasped and called out "Lisa!" — before the bullet slammed into his chest and _pain_ erupted inside of him.

"Guh!"

He clutched at the wound, gasping as he fell to one side and slumped onto the floor.

"Let him die!" said his Tattletale, holding back Panacea.

"What the fuck, Lisa!" shouted Apocrypha. "You just fucking _shot_ him!"

"What do you _mean_ , 'let him die,' you crazy bitch?!" demanded Panacea.

"We just declared 'Check,'" said his Tattletale grimly.

"What the fuck is _that_ supposed to mean?"

"It means that we're not even really _here_ ," she explained. "After all, this is his _safe_ timeline, isn't it? The one you planned on retreating to, just in case something went wrong at your base?"

Thomas could only let out a wet, bloody gurgle.

"Yeah, definitely. So, if something happens _here_ that forces him to close _this_ timeline, then that means the other one was chosen by default, so the _real_ us will have him cornered with his back to the wall and no way out. We just put him in Check."

Damn her. Damn her and her fucking Thinker powers.

"What if you're wrong?" asked Apocrypha. "What if we already got there and this _is_ the real timeline?"

His Tattletale just looked down at him with cold eyes, mouth set into a viciously satisfied line.

"Then nothing of value will have been lost."

Thomas died.

And Coil sat in his base, stock still, as he considered the events of that closed timeline and what they meant.

His Tattletale was coming _here_ , to _this_ base. Somehow, someway, they knew where he lived, where he was. His Tattletale's Thinker power? Probably. Maybe. There was no way to be sure, because there was so little known about Apocrypha's powers and he hadn't the slightest idea whether she had some Thinker ability of her own or if she could boost others.

Not important. The important thing was, he had to prepare for them.

Immediately, he split the timelines, and in each, he gave different orders. Coil A spoke:

"Alpha Team, extract Priority Package Delta through emergency exit Beta, take her to Castle Base, make _sure_ she remains unharmed. Bravo Team and Charlie Team, prepare to engage hostiles from the main entrance, _take no prisoners_. Lethal measures are authorized. Delta Team, station yourselves outside my office. Inform me immediately the moment you engage the enemy."

In the other timeline, Coil One told his men, "All teams, prepare for enemy contact. Alpha Team, take point at the entrance hall, start shooting the moment you have any sort of confirmation of enemy presence. Brave, Charlie, and Delta Team, I want you guarding the door to my office."

In both timelines, he was answered with calls of "Roger!" and "Yes, sir!"

"Good. Coil out."

The moment he was done, Coil A set about preparing everything necessary, transferring command of the self-destruct sequence to his phone for remote detonation and wiping everything he absolutely didn't want discovered from his hard drive.

Meanwhile, Coil One made preparations of a different sort, making sure his sidearm was loaded, steeling himself mentally for the confrontation to come. Then, he sat down to wait.

Once he'd finished prepping his base to blow, Coil A waited only to get confirmation from Alpha Team that his pet, Dinah Alcott, had been extracted safely and was en route to Castle Base before he opened the emergency exit hidden in his office and started out the passageway that would lead him to safety.

He took the stairs up slowly and carefully, because here and now, with the base set to blow and him so close to it, the last thing he needed was to trip and sprain his ankle or break his leg.

It was as he neared the end of the tunnel, with the secret door that led to freedom in sight, that he received the call from Bravo Team.

" _Contact! Contact! Enemy has breached the main door! Engaging!"_

"I see." Coil A breathed. "Thank you. When you're done, I want to see their bodies."

" _Rog_ — _"_

Coil A thumbed to the self-destruct and activated it.

A muted _BOOM_ sounded in the distance, and the shuddering tremors knocked dust from the ceiling above him. Then came the rumble of collapsing stone as all of the supports were simultaneously destroyed and his concrete bunker fell in on itself, crushing everyone inside.

Coil A didn't stop to enjoy his victory, not yet. Instead, he kept going and opened the secret door to the bottom floor of a parking garage, almost entirely empty. It was only once he'd closed the door behind him, watched it disappear into the surrounding floor, and waited, breath held, for the distant peels of thunder to fade, it was only once it had all settled and was done that he allowed himself this victory.

He turned around and started walking.

Then, after he'd made it about a hundred feet, he started chuckling. Another ten and he allowed himself to laugh.

"Nothing of value was lost, huh?" he asked the empty air. "You're declaring Check? Well, what do you think of _that_ , bitch! Huh? What do you think of _that_? You thought it was going to be that easy, did you? You thought you were going to get one over on me, did you? Try it with a hundred thousand tons of concrete on your head!"

He reined himself in and took a deep breath, trying to stop the chuckles. It took him a couple of minutes to regain control, to force them all down, but when he did, he straightened, and under the full face mask, his smiled cruelly at a joke only he could appreciate, now.

"Checkmate. I win."

And he started towards the car he'd stashed here to finish his clean getaway.

"And where do you think _you're_ going?"

Coil A spun around —

"Gurk!"

— and something _scythed_ through his gut like fire, lifted him up off of his feet, carried him backwards, and _slammed_ him like a missile into one of the concrete support beams. His head cracked off of it, and as a new pain bloomed across the back of his skull, for a few timeless seconds, he saw stars.

"Gu-huh!"

He gasped in a breath, tried to focus, but his lungs had trouble filling and the flames burning his belly made concentrating all but impossible. Uncountable moments passed, stretching out into infinity such that there was no way to separate seconds from minutes from hours, but eventually, somehow, he managed to claw his way back to coherence.

When he looked down to see what had hit him, however —

"No. No, no, no!"

— it was to find an enormous greatsword jutting out from under his diaphragm, the hilt offered out in some ludicrous mockery of the Sword in the Stone.

He was already reaching for it before he could even consider whether or not he _should_.

"I wouldn't do that, if I were you."

Coil A looked up to find a face carved from stone step out of the dark.

"Right now, the thing that's killing you is also the only thing keeping you alive."

He blinked, realized, yes, if he were somehow able to remove the sword in his belly, he'd bleed out in under a minute, and began to observe the person across from him (the owner of the sword, some part of him knew distantly). A lean, narrow face, framed by long locks of silver. Silvery steel armor, a black bodysuit trimmed in muted red, a luminescent green pattern on the chest — there was no cape in Brockton Bay who met that description.

Wait. No, there was. Recorded only once, locked away in one of the secret files that Piggot would never have thought he had access to, a cape that had met Armsmaster on her first night out after she had beaten Lung single-handedly. A cape who had transformed from this knightly figure into a teenage girl in purple and gold.

"Apocrypha!" he rasped.

"Hello, Coil."

"How," he tried breathlessly. "How did you…"

"Survive?" she asked. "By the skin of my teeth." A cold, mirthless smile pulled at her lips, entirely devoid of any semblance of warmth or humor. "Lisa and Amy were not so lucky."

"But… My base…"

"Is gone, along with all of your hired goons." Her eyes were like chips of ice. "As well as my two best friends."

Belatedly, it all clicked. "You're… here to kill me."

She didn't flinch. She didn't hesitate. There wasn't the slightest sign of indecision. "Yes."

If he hadn't had a sword sticking through his gut, a shiver might have gone down his spine.

"Y-you can't," he said, projecting a confidence and a surety of his assertion that he most definitely didn't feel. "You w-won't. You're… a hero."

"Won't I?" Her smile gained edges. "Do you know the _one_ thing _every_ hero in my repertoire has in common, Coil? The _one_ thing that ties them all together? They've all _killed_. And they were _celebrated_ for it."

"Y-you… had ample chance… to kill _Lung_. To kill… _Bakuda_. You _didn't_."

"But I almost did," she confessed casually, almost conversationally. "Lung, on accident. Bakuda… do you know the only reason I _didn't_? The _one_ thing she did that held me back from actually doing it?"

He didn't answer, although he'd had a few suspicions ever since the incident. Now, she was only confirming what he'd thought before.

"She spared my father," Apocrypha said. "For everything else she did, for all her bluster and threats, she _didn't_ actually hurt him. If she _had_ … If she _had_ …"

The statement hung there, an implied threat, an implication of her limits and how they could break. Of how _he_ could break them. Of what buttons needed to be pushed to nudge her over the edge, of what levers could drive her to the darkest depths.

He was beginning to believe he understood what was happening, now.

"Y-you wouldn't," he told her, although even he couldn't fake belief in it, now. "Y-you're not… that kind of person."

"You're right, I'm not," she said, surprising him. "I've been fighting that inevitability since my Trigger, since I _understood_ … I've tried _so very hard_ not to step over the lines I set for myself, so that I didn't become _that_ person. I've tried so _hard_ not to let myself compromise, not to let myself become someone hard enough to make the decision to _end_ another person. You're right, I'm not that kind of person. I wasn't…until five minutes ago."

He froze. Every thought process ground to a halt.

 _Until five minutes ago_.

When Tattletale and Panacea were crushed and killed as his base self-destructed, she meant.

"Y-you're going t-to kill me."

He'd miscalculated. Somewhere, somehow, he'd miscalculated, _badly_.

"Not yet, but we'll get there," said Apocrypha.

He startled. "What?"

"Have you forgotten already? I'm — I _was_ friends with _Lisa_ , Coil. _Tattletale_. She's told me _all_ about how your power works, what its limitations are."

Alarm rang distantly in the back of his head. "What?"

"You simulate possible futures in real time, living through them simultaneously and gaining the experiences of each, even though you only choose one, in the end. Since we're still here and you haven't closed down this possibility… I'm guessing only two, right? One where you self-destructed your base and left — this one — another where you didn't and stayed behind, probably to see what information you could gather, right?"

He startled again. "H-how?"

"Because we're still here," she repeated. "Which means, somewhere in there, you still consider it possible that you might want _this_ timeline. If you _did_ have more, if you had one where you were sitting at home, safe and sound, _then we wouldn't be here, anymore_."

Coil A froze again, stunned. He swallowed thickly.

"Wh-what… are you going to do? Why not…just kill me?"

She regarded him coldly. "Because if you die in both timelines, I don't put it past you to keep this one just to fuck me over. You've already proven you're willing to do something like that, after all. So…"

She reached out and took hold of the hilt of the massive greatsword, then started to push it deeper. Coil A groaned, and then screamed, as the edges of the blade cut further into his body and sank further into the pillar he'd been pinned to with a sound like nails on a chalkboard.

After an eternity of pain, the blade was as deep as it was going to go, and the ornamentation at the base of it dug lightly into his wound. He panted, out of breath, every nerve fried and still throbbing as he tried desperately not to pass out.

"I'm going to give you _incentive_ to choose the other," she said grimly.

"Y-you're not… Yo-ou're not… that kind of…p-person!"

The fierce expression on her face could have frightened the most hardened of criminals, such was its intensity. Kaiser himself would have hesitated to see it. Even someone like _Hookwolf_ would have flinched if it was turned in his direction.

"I'm _exactly_ that kind of person, right now. If I have to stop running from it in order to give my other self and her two best friends a chance to survive, to _escape_ this, then I'll harden my heart and do _whatever it takes_ to see that _their_ timeline is the one you choose."

"What…" he tried between breaths. "What if…I already _chose_ …this timeline? What…if there… _isn't_ …another?"

For a single instant, her face contorted into a rictus of fury and grief so stark and so horrible that he thought she might try to tear him apart with her _teeth_. But after an abortive jerk towards him, moving barely a few inches forward, her expression closed down and became, if possible, even colder than before, and she regarded him with eyes that could have frozen Hell itself.

"Then I'll just have to stop turning away and live with who I am," she told him with a voice like the Arctic. "Unlike you. _You_ won't be alive to see what you made me into."

She let go of her sword and reached out, taking one of his hands in hers with an utterly incongruent gentleness. Then, as her grip tightened, her right hand took hold of his index finger, and Coil realized what it was she intended to do.

It only took two fingers before he decided to drop that timeline.

Coil One, now the _only_ Coil, sat, frozen, in his office, trying to wrap his head around what had happened in his other timeline.

He'd been tortured. That had… _never_ happened before. Not once, in all the myriad failures and aborted tragedies his power had allowed him to see and avoid, had he _ever_ been tortured. Injured, killed, even captured, sometimes, but never subjected to something so visceral, so bent entirely on inflicting pain, so determined to make him suffer as much as possible, so…

He realized belatedly that he was shaking, and his hands were glued to the armrests of his chair in white-knuckled grips. His heart was still beating a rapid rhythm against the inside of his chest, like he was still back there in that parking lot, dying slowly as that piercing gaze watched him squirm and scream with the grim satisfaction of an executioner.

There was a commotion outside, the rapid sound of gunfire that erupted suddenly and just as suddenly fell silent, and Coil knew immediately what it meant. His breath caught in his throat and his hands curled tighter around the armrests of his chair as the beating of his heart sped up, and he realized, then and there, with a wash of cold terror, that he _didn't_ have another timeline to escape to, he _didn't_ have a way out of this situation, and he was completely and utterly trapped.

The silence stretched for seconds that felt like hours, and then, the door to his office swung open dramatically, and through the door strode the three girls who had cornered him in his own home in the other timeline, with Apocrypha leading in the front. He should say something, he should have a witty line or a calm remark, a threat, a promise, a boast — _anything_ that would let him regain control of the situation.

But his lips wouldn't move. His tongue was glued to the roof of his mouth.

"Heya, Bossman," said his Tattletale, grinning at him broadly. "Surprised to see me? Alive?"

Still, his mouth refused to obey.

Apocrypha stepped forward, and the line of her mouth, the hard set to her shoulders, the tense posture that seemed to him to be holding back every ounce of the violence and aggression her alternate self had displayed, it was like a slap in the face. He jerked back and away, pushing deeper into his chair as though that would help him escape the inevitable.

His gut and his fingers burned with remembered agony, the phantom of another life. The promise of what was to come in this one.

"Wait," he said, scrambling for anything that would convince her to stop, "wait, I can be of use to you! I have money, influence — an in with the PRT! I can… I can clean up the Boat Graveyard, hire the Dockworkers! You'll never want for anything ever again!"

"Coil," she said slowly, clearly, in a tone heavy with meaning and purpose. "I've beaten your agents, I've beaten your defenses, I've beaten _you_."

Behind her, he saw his Tattletale flinch, watched her face cycle rapidly between surprise, indignation, fury, and settle at last on grim resignation.

"By right of conquest, I demand these boons —"

He realized what was going to happen almost too late, as his Tattletale drew her pistol with practiced speed and leveled it in his direction. He split the timeline almost reflexively, and in one, he dodged right, while in the other, he dodged left.

 _BANG_

The timelines collapsed back into one, and the Coil who dodged left jerked as the bullet hit home, blood spurting out of his chest, then slumped over onto the surface of his desk.

 **Bad End 2: Quantum Liner Collapse**

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

 **I tell you, it was a real pain trying to figure out exactly how Taylor's powers affected Coil's precognition. Not because of "how do they affect it" itself, but because of the logistics nightmare of "how localized is localized omniscience" in regards to Shards. "Is his shard's detection method exotic enough to bypass invisibility, and would it matter when the invisibility is created via magecraft?" and "If it has to guess at why the three girls are walking around in a bedsheet, is it creative enough to imagine an invisibility cloak? Would it research possible uses? Would it ping Coil's knowledge base to try and find out?"**

 **So I just defaulted to, "It predicted them coming _without_ an invisibility cloak." Because it was easier than wrecking my brain over the rest.**

 **On the events in this chapter more generally: there were loads of hints in this chapter about some stuff coming up. _Loads_ of them. Like, every single hint I've given before, and _then_ some. In fact, I wasn't sure I hadn't given away the game entirely.**

 **As always, read, review, and enjoy.**

 **And for early access to chapters and bonus content:**

 **p a treon . com (slash) James_D_Fawkes**


	49. Tyranny 6-3

**Tyranny 6.3**

 _BANG_

The gunshot was thunderous and deafening in the confined space of Coil's office, bouncing off the walls with a reverberating echo that only seemed to make it louder. I gasped, ears ringing from the noise, and stumbled back as a few stray splotches of Coil's blood splashed over my face and the front of my costume.

And inside my chest, the noose wrapped around my heart pulled tight, pulled taut, until it felt like it was trying to yank it out through my ribs.

Then, with the finality of a dying man's last breath, it _snapped_.

I wasn't the only one who felt it. Even as I struggled to gulp down a breath, even as the sudden sense of _weight_ and _certainty_ that I had borne, almost unnoticed, for the past few weeks vanished from inside of me and almost took my knees out from under me, Lisa gasped and stumbled, too.

When I turned to look, she was doubled over, her pistol held in a trembling, white-knuckled grip even as her other hand clutched desperately at her chest — at her heart.

"Fuck," I saw her mouth form. "Fuck."

"You shot him!" Amy exclaimed disbelievingly. The only reason I could even hear her was because she was shouting. "You crazy fucking bitch, you _killed_ him!"

I pinned Lisa with my best glare. It probably would've been less daunting if she could have seen my actual face, rather than just my mouth.

"You… What did you just _do_?"

The feeling in my chest, just now…the geis had just been broken — on _her_ end.

"What did _I_ just do?" she snapped, snarling. "What the fuck were _you_ doing?!"

"I was fucking handling it!" I spat. My strength was starting to come back. "I was about to fucking take care of it!"

Lisa tried to straighten up, but she only made it about halfway, and she glared back at me, one hand still clutching at her chest.

"No, you fucking _weren't_!" she yelled, and it didn't make the ringing in my ears any better. "You were giving him a fucking _out_! You were going to fucking _let him go_ , give him a fucking chance to come back and _fuck us both over, again_! What the _fuck_ were you thinking, Taylor!"

That I didn't want to be a murderer at fifteen. I could pretend it wasn't the same with Sophia, that she had gotten what was coming to her, that because she had come after me in the middle of the night with the intent to murder me in my sleep, it was self-defense, but actually killing Coil wasn't the same as that. _Executing_ a man in cold blood wasn't the same as that.

"I was gonna bind him!" I retorted angrily. "With a _geis_ , you idiot, so he'd never bother us ever again! I wasn't just gonna let him _walk away_!"

"You're the fucking idiot, if you thought that would actually work!" she said, hints of red spreading over her cheeks. "He would have come back after us, _even if it meant breaking that geis_! Weeks, months, years — he'd fucking test it, try to find a loophole, and if he couldn't, he'd _break_ it, _as long as it meant he could take us down with him_! He's a vindictive, spiteful _sonuvabitch_ , Taylor! He's ten times worse than _Bakuda_ , and _you_ were gonna let him _get away_!"

"No, I was gonna hand him over to the PRT —"

Lisa burst out into mocking laughter. "Like that's any better! Hand him over to the government stooges with the revolving door cells, where he has moles or bribed agents who can bust him out or let him escape by the end of the day! He'd be out and plotting our fucking _murders_ before his seat even had a chance to get fucking warm!"

I glared. "I trust Armsmaster —"

"Hookwolf has a _Birdcage sentence_!" she cut across me. "He's escaped from them _three fucking times_ , already! If you think Coil wouldn't be out within _hours_ and planning his revenge for how badly we've fucked up his base and his plans, you're fucking delusional!"

She was right. Somewhere inside me, I knew she was right. That Coil deserved what she'd done to him several times over. That he was a scumbag and a slippery slimeball who didn't deserve an ounce of my pity. That we were safer with him dead.

And that was why I absolutely couldn't admit it.

Because agreeing with her meant crossing a line. It meant becoming more like _her_ , it meant becoming a person I didn't hated, acknowledging a truth I'd been running from. I couldn't… Even if Coil was as bad as she said and more, I couldn't… If I was even party to something like that, if I let it happen in front of me…

"You don't know that —"

"Did you miss the fucking _snipers_!" she demanded. "The hitmen he sent after us! The attempts to put holes the size of _softballs_ through our fucking chests! The part where his mercs shot at us with automatic rifles and Tinkertech lasers! How about recruiting me at _gunpoint_? Maybe, like I've been fucking _telling_ you guys, the fact that he's an amoral, conscienceless _bastard_ who would quite _happily_ blow this base up, with both us and his own men still inside?"

"He would never have done any of that ever again!" I countered.

Even as I said it, I knew it was a lie. Geasa, even the more powerful ones like I'd used on Bakuda, like I'd been about to use on Coil, could be broken. _Had_ been broken. And Coil… Coil was a monster.

But I couldn't admit that. Not now, not ever. If I let myself believe that Lisa was right, that killing Coil was the only way out, then that meant _that_ hero was right, too. And if I did that…

If I did that, then I was already…

"Excuse me if I don't have that much confidence in the frontrunner for Scumbag of the Year," Lisa said sarcastically. "Doesn't matter now, does it? He won't be doing it, anymore, anyway — don't fucking touch him!"

She pointed, suddenly, at Amy, who had moved towards the desk and Coil's…Coil's body. Amy startled, then glared. "He's still alive!"

What?

I whipped around, and sure enough, his chest was heaving for air, although I still couldn't hear it over the ringing in my ears. If he was conscious, if he was even coherent enough to do anything but feel pain, I didn't know, and the mask that hid his face also hid everything that might be gleaned from it.

But the sound of the hammer on Lisa's gun cocking back was still like thunder.

"Then I guess I'll just have to rectify that."

My body moved before I could even think about what I was doing, and then I was staring down the barrel, past the sights, and into her grim face.

"No."

Lisa's scowl deepened. "Get out of the way, Taylor."

"I'm not going to let you kill him, Lisa."

"Fucking — he's already dead! His heart just hasn't figured out enough to stop beating!"

"And that makes it okay for you to shoot him again?" I shouted back. "We didn't come here to kill him, Lisa! _Murder_ wasn't part of the plan!"

"Fucking _yes, it was_!" she spat at me. "Yes! It! Was! From the beginning, from the _moment_ we swore those oaths back in the bank, this was _always_ how it was supposed to go! I thought you fucking understood that, Taylor! I thought you understood that I couldn't be free until he was _dead_! That you, me, your dad, everyone we care about, none of us could be safe and out of his reach while he was still alive!"

I opened my mouth to retort, but she just went on and steamrolled over me.

"I thought you'd understand that, after Bakuda!" she continued. "After Vista lost her fucking _arm_ as collateral damage! After he sent a _hit squad_ to chase me through the city! Every time I looked at you this weekend, it was 'determined to deal with Coil' or 'resolved to handle Coil!' I thought we were on the same fucking page!"

My lips pulled tight.

"What, page ten of the sociopath's handbook?" Amy asked sarcastically.

Lisa took a deep, calming breath, let it out, and her mouth quirked. "No, page five of the 'How to be a Hero' handbook, actually. I thought you, Taylor, of all people, would understand that sometimes, being a hero means killing the villain. But if you're not willing to go that far, then I guess I get to be the hero, tonight."

"No," I repeated.

"Move, Taylor."

"I'm not going to let you shoot him again."

"Damn it, Taylor!" Lisa snapped. "I already broke my fucking geis, I'm not going to sit here and let it be for no reason! Get out of my fucking way!"

"No, I won't," I said again.

"If you think he'd fucking _thank you_ for this —"

The unholy _screech_ of sudden feedback echoed throughout the room, like a nail driven through each of my eardrums, and I could even hear it bouncing back from the hallways outside. I cringed and covered my ears, stumbling away until my back hit one of the walls, and so did Amy and Lisa, both of them grimacing and gritting their teeth. It had to be going through the entire _base_.

" _Noelle,"_ gurgled a familiar voice, and I looked over, surprised, to find that Coil had propped himself up while we were arguing, speaking into a what had to be what passed for this base's PA system while his other hand pressed against the hole in his chest. _"Th-there's three girls i-in my office. Capes. They're here to kill y_ — _"_

 _BANG_ echoed another gunshot, and the retort came through on the PA, too. Coil jerked again as more blood spurted out of his body. Even through the hands pressed against my ears, the sound of it was almost deafening.

 _BANG-BANG-BANG,_ Lisa fired, again and again. _BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG_ , she kept going, squeezing the trigger over and over and sending bullet after bullet into Coil, who jerked more with each shot, until her gun let out an empty _click, click, click_. Coil fell backwards, slumping bonelessly in his chair, motionless as more blood came from the eight new holes Lisa had just put into him.

"Fuck," Lisa cursed, hand trembling. "Of fucking course. He dodged _left_ , so I only hit him in the lung, not the heart."

"Jesus H Christ, you fucking psycho!" Amy snarled. "You didn't need to empty the whole fucking _clip_ into him!"

"Well," Lisa replied, "there's something to be said for overkill —"

 _BOOM_ , resounded an echoing rumble. The floor beneath our feet vibrated, and the three of us shared a startled look.

"What —"

 _BOOM_ , it came again, followed by an echoing _CRASH_ as something big and heavy tumbled over in the distance.

"Fuck."

Lisa spun around and took off out of the office at a dash, but Amy and I weren't far behind, stepping carelessly over the sleeping mercs as we raced through the hallways and back towards the main hall. The weighty sound of something big moving fast rang from ahead, bouncing off of the concrete walls.

When we made it back to the entrance hall, it was utterly _trashed_. Down on the floor below, where crates and boxes had been stacked and piled up, everything had been scattered about, tossed every which way like they'd been swept aside by a hurricane. Some had busted open, spilling sleek, black rifles or bars of shrink-wrapped military rations all over the floor. Others had been crushed as though under the foot of an elephant, splitting at the seams or crumpled and flattened like a pancake.

The metal walkways weren't much better off — the railings were dangling, half torn off, over the pit that oversaw the lower level, and half of the lights that had been set into the edges had been ripped from their mountings, too. They hung, swinging back and forth like something out of a horror film, connected and held only by their wiring, and those that hadn't been broken outright flickered weakly.

Even the big, vault-like door that had guarded the entrance had been blown wide open, exposing the base to the long tunnel that led outside.

"What the hell?" I whispered.

What could have done _this_?

"Fuck," Lisa hissed, "she _would_ be here, wouldn't she? Of all his fucking bases."

"Lisa?"

But she ignored me and raced off, again, and after sharing a look of foreboding with Amy, we followed after her, again. The metal walkways echoed beneath us, and then the concrete, and the tunnel that had felt so long on our way in seemed incredibly short as we covered the ground at a full sprint.

We came out into the moonless night, again, and Lisa skidded to a stop. Amy trailed behind me, panting as she slowed to a jog, then doubled over. "Shit," she breathed, "you guys are fucking _ridiculous_ , you know that?"

Lisa grimaced. "Ah, fuck."

Then, suddenly, she was gone, and I jerked back as one of Coil's mercs — bruised and beaten, one of the men I'd disabled on our way in — fell to the ground in her place, groaning.

"What — Lisa!"

"Over here, girls!"

I spun around and saw —

"What the fuck?"

"Holy shit," said Amy.

A man in a suit and a top hat with a red mask over his face, holding Lisa and waving at us with a gun in his hand from beside Lisa's head — in my head, I dubbed him Tuxedo Mask. And next to him… Next to him, maybe ten feet away, was an enormous, writhing mass of flesh, ranging from raw red to dark green to muddy brown and maybe a dozen other colors, besides. Monstrous heads and limbs sprouted from all over it, some of them outright nonsensical and some of them bizarre combinations of other animals. Each of them wriggled and moved, seemingly independent of each other, and the mass as a whole vibrated, barely contained.

And atop this amalgam was the figure of a woman, but only from the waist up. It was like someone had taken every kind of beast they could get their hands on and surgically attached them to a woman's torso.

Something tickled at the back of my head, and I flinched, forcing it away. No, now was _not_ the time.

"Alright, I'm sure you girls have seen enough movies to know how this works," said Tuxedo Mask. "Here's how this is going to go. We need a little…help, of the kind only _Panacea_ " — here, he gestured in Amy's direction — "can provide. As long as no one tries anything funny and we get what we want, you can have your little friend back and we can all go on our way, happy and healthy. But if you try to get clever…"

He prodded his hostage with the barrel of his pistol to demonstrate.

I…didn't know how to take it. Laugh? I mean, as long as Lisa had her amulet on, she was safe, but if I gave _that_ away, he could just take it off of her.

I pursed my lips.

Was I fast enough? On my own…maybe. Probably. With my best Vantage, I might be able to get there and grab her before Tuxedo Mask, there, could even react, and if I pulled out someone like Aife…

I took a slight step forward, tensing, preparing myself — and out of the corner of my eye, I saw one of the tentacles jerk, and a sudden jolt of petrifying foreboding _rocketed_ down my spine. Every muscle in my body locked up, frozen, as the breath in my lungs became _suffocating_.

 _Don't get close_. It was like a physical presence, wrapping around my limbs to hold me in place. _Don't get anywhere near her. Don't let her touch you._

Almost against my will, I took a step backwards.

"Well," Lisa said wryly, "I knew it would be pretty fast, but not _this_ fast. I figured a week or two, not ten or fifteen minutes."

It was enough to take my attention off of the…the _monster_ , and I gulped down a breath as my lungs started working again. A bead of sweat curled down my scalp and disappeared into the edge of my mask.

"What are you talking about?" asked Tuxedo Mask.

"Nothing you need to worry about." She chuckled briefly. "But let's get to know each other better, huh? Apocrypha, Panacea, this is Trickster, the 'leader' — in a manner of speaking — of the nomadic cape group called the Travelers. The gigantic wall of fleshy bits is his girlfriend, Noelle. Trickster, those two are Apocrypha and Panacea, but you already knew that, right? Coil must've told you."

"Shut up," said Trickster.

"Oh, no, no, _no_ ," she replied, grinning. "We still need a bit of exposition, here, you know? These two have _no_ idea who you guys are, and we won't get anywhere if you just keep making demands, you know? If you're going to _negotiate_ , the other side needs to know what you want. See, girls, Noelle, here, is in a bit of a bind, because her powers did _this_ " — she gestured vaguely at the writhing blob of flesh and body parts — "to her. No one knows what's happening, but Trickster and his friends think that she might be turning into an _Endbringer_. Scary, right?"

What?

My gaze swept back to the…to Noelle, the girl attached to the monster, and I took another step back almost unconsciously, swallowing around the lump in my throat. Suddenly, that jolt of foreboding felt all too justified, because if it was true…

She was becoming an _Endbringer_? Right here, in Brockton Bay?

"I said, _shut up_ ," Trickster growled.

"So, they've been traveling around, all over the country," Lisa went on, ignoring him, "trying to find someone who can fix her. In case it wasn't already obvious, Coil was the latest in a long line of people they thought might have the resources to make that happen — and, as you can imagine, they're not too happy that he just got killed."

He pushed the barrel of the pistol harder against her temple. "Do you _want_ to get fucking shot, you bitch!"

"That threat would be a whole lot more intimidating if the gun you were holding to my head wasn't empty," Lisa remarked.

"Oh yeah?" said Trickster. "How can you be sure I didn't reload it while you weren't looking?"

She laughed. "Come on, it's in the name! Tattletale — it means I _always_ know things you think I shouldn't. Speaking of which, what do your _friends_ think about this idea of yours? Have you told them about this _brilliant_ plan you've concocted, or were you just hoping that everything would be over and done with before they showed up and you could claim it was a miracle, afterwards?"

But this was clearly the last straw.

"You know what?" said Trickster. "Fuck you."

He grabbed a fistful of the borrowed hoodie in one hand, her shoulder with the other, and with a full body twist and a grunt of exertion, he shoved her towards the gigantic mound of flesh and appendages. Lisa stumbled, a look of stunned surprise on her face, and I took a step forward, preparing to rush in and rescue her — and then a tentacle lashed out, and I flinched as another jolt of foreboding stole the breath from my lungs and the surety from my feet. I could only watch, frozen, as it took hold of her arm and yanked her in, absorbing her into the mass like a blob of gelatin.

"Lisa!" Amy cried, forgetting to use her cape name.

"Krouse!" shouted Noelle, sounding horrified.

"I'm changing the deal, now, girls," said Trickster. He turned the gun in our direction as though to ward us off or threaten us. "The only way you're getting your friend back is if you fix Noelle. That's how this is gonna go. Understand?"

Anger, anger that didn't feel entirely like it was mine, exploded in my stomach, and the liquid fire in my veins sent my limbs aquiver. I snarled. "You sonuvabitch —"

"I'll do it!" Amy burst out.

I startled and turned to her. "What? Amy!"

"I'll do it," she repeated. "I'll heal her. As long as you promise Lisa is okay, I'll heal Noelle."

Trickster turned to Noelle. "Noelle?"

Slowly, biting her lip, the girl atop the monster nodded.

Trickster let out a noise like a sigh, then started to step back and away, still pointing his gun in our direction. "Okay," he said, "do it. But no funny business. I'm watching."

"Okay." Amy nodded. "Alright."

She started to step forward, towards the monster, but I snagged her arm before she could.

"What are you doing?" I hissed at her.

"Saving Lisa," she whispered back.

"Are you crazy? What if the same thing happens to you?"

 _Don't let her go_ , every instinct inside me was saying. _Don't let her get close_.

"Then I guess you'll have to find some way to save both of us!" she snapped. "Do you have a better idea, right now?"

"I could try and find a hero who could do it instead —"

"And you think he'd trust you if you did?" she demanded.

I hesitated. Because she was right, wasn't she? If I pulled out a hero right here and now, even if it was one that _could_ fix whatever was wrong with Noelle, then why would he — would either of them, really, Trickster _or_ Noelle — have any reason to believe I was telling the truth about being able to fix her?

Would he trust me?

"No," I admitted at length.

"Any day now, girls!" Trickster called over.

I ignored him.

"It has to be me," Amy said quietly.

I bit my lip, wishing that I could refute the logic or that I had some way of doing this that wouldn't blow this powderkeg sky high, then let go of her arm and stepped back.

Once I had, Amy took another steadying breath, then slowly, haltingly, started to make her way over to the mass of flesh and tentacles. Every part of me was tense, screaming that it would go wrong, that it would fail, even if I had no idea why I was so sure of it. The farther and farther away Amy got from me, the closer and closer she got to Noelle, the more I had to force myself to just _breathe_ and hope that I was wrong.

Amy came to a stop a few feet away from Noelle's lower half, lifting her arm hesitantly. I wasn't the only one who seemed to realize how much effort the girl attached to the monster looked to be putting in keeping the various monstrous appendages from simply lashing out, because they all quivered, rigid and vibrating with an energy and restlessness that I could see even from where I was standing. Up close, they must have looked like branches shaking in a violent storm. Noelle herself didn't even seem to be _breathing_.

Then, Amy reached out, slowly, carefully, like she was waiting to be attacked, and pressed her hand against the blotchy flesh. For a second, I thought everything was going to be okay, that it was going to work, and some of the tension inside me loosened.

But Amy screamed — "Fuck!" — and was pulled in before I could even realize what was happening.

My stomach dropped.

"Amy!" I shouted.

"Fuck," Trickster muttered, almost unheard. "It didn't work."

I almost went over to them, almost rushed towards Noelle so I could reach in and try to pull them free — pull Amy and Lisa free. But Noelle trembled, the heads and legs and tentacles jerking sporadically, and I stopped before I could make it more than two steps as every instinct in my head _screamed_ at me to stay away.

"You lied to me," Noelle began lowly. When she raised her head, she pinned me with a furious glare and a snarl that twisted her face into something ugly. "You _lied_ to me! And you took away my only hope!"

She moved.

"You fucking _BITCH!_ "

She was fast. Faster than fast. So fast that a normal human would've been overtaken in an instant. Even _I_ didn't have time to think about how to react, what I should do. My body just moved on its own, and I stepped back and away, putting only enough distance between us that I had enough range to —

 _Thunder Feat._

— pull back my arm, gather my strength, and unleash it in a single blow.

"GRAH!"

The bulging mass of her lower body _shredded_ before the power of my attack, blasting away chunks of flesh and meat and spilling some sort of _bile_ all over the place. Heads, tentacles, and legs, severed from the main mass, went flying, spewing something that looked and smelled more like vomit instead of blood, and Noelle herself reared back, screaming, although whether she even felt any pain from the damage, I had no idea.

It wasn't enough.

If some part of me had held out hope that my almost reflexive blow had been enough to free Amy and Lisa, it was dashed. The front of her, the area that took my Thunder Feat head on, was a mangled mess of pulped meat, a downright nauseating and grisly sight made better _only_ because there wasn't any blood, and even as I watched, my brain frazzled as I tried to comprehend everything that was happening _too much_ and _too fast_ , more sloughed off and fell to the ground with obscene squelching noises.

But a blow that would have been enough to kill at least a dozen men at once had made only the barest dent in that writhing mass, akin to tearing off the top layer of skin. There was still so much more left, still the majority of that monstrous growth. It would take me a dozen such blows just to carve away half of it, and if I accidentally hit Lisa or Amy in the process…?

My outstretched fist trembled, and I found my eyes locking onto my pristine, untouched knuckles.

Because I _could_ have hit them on accident. That I didn't… That I didn't was a miracle.

"GRAGH!" Noelle screamed. "You bitch! You fucking bitch!"

She moved again, and I flinched, starting to back away and put space between us, but she turned away from me and sped off, instead. It took me several crucial seconds to realize that she was running _away_ , and by that time, she'd picked up a speed that was frankly ludicrous for something as big as she was.

"Wait!" I called after her, although I didn't know what else I could say. I started to follow. "Stop!"

But I only made it half a dozen steps before I stopped. There was no point trying to chase after her. She was too fast, too agile. Vantage of Swiftness might let me keep up for a while, but she'd undoubtedly lose me somewhere along the line with a sharp turn, and if she didn't, I'd probably tire myself out long before she began to slow down.

And even if I kept up with her the whole way, what would I do when she stopped?

I turned back towards the entrance to Coil's secret base. The gate that had guarded it was nearly torn off, hanging limply by one hinge.

Fight her? Sure, it would probably come down to that. She apparently blamed us — me, Lisa, and Amy — for ruining her best shot at fixing what was wrong with her, for ruining her chance to be a normal human, again. If she felt like she had nowhere left to turn and all her options were gone, I had no doubt that she'd probably lash out.

But she had my friends. They were hostages, held inside of her body, being subjected to who even knew _what_. If I fought her, all it would take was one wrong move, one punch or slash or stab that hit the wrong place, and…

How was I supposed to fight her without hurting…without _killing_ my own friends? I didn't want to become a murderer, I didn't want to be that person, but if it was _my only friends_ whose blood wound up on my hands… I couldn't…

I was so out of it, I almost tripped on something. When I looked down, I found I'd stepped on a smartphone.

I bent down and picked it up, a slim piece of electronics and silicon, protected by a baby blue plastic shell with sturdy, rubber corners. When I turned it over, the screen was consumed by a flashing red and yellow box, with an exclamation mark and the word "ALERT" written in big, bold, stark black letters.

Amy's. It had to be.

My hands started to tremble and my vision blurred at the edges.

Damn it. Damn it. Damn it.

"Fuck," I whispered hoarsely.

Why?

What… What was I supposed to do? How was I supposed to fix this? Save my friends from what might be a nascent _Endbringer_ , of all things? How was I supposed to make her let them go? Without them or anyone else getting hurt?

There _was_ a hero who could do that.

I flinched away from the knowledge. No. There had to be another way. Another option. Something, someone else in my repertoire that could fix this fucking _mess_. _Anyone_ else. There couldn't be just _one_ hero who could solve this situation, there just couldn't. There had to be _at least_ one more, hell, someone who could do it even _better_.

But I couldn't think of anyone, and I was too scared to reach for my power and ask it for options, because if it offered only the one hero and even my _own power_ was telling me that I had no other options, then I —

"Where did you get that phone?"

I startled, and when I looked up, I'd been joined by what looked to be an entire team of capes dressed in white, with varying secondary colors and unique symbols emblazoned on their costumes to set them apart. About half of them were actually _flying_. The one who'd spoken, standing in front of the others, had orange accents and was adorned with the symbol of a crossed blade.

This… This was New Wave, wasn't it? Amy's family.

"I won't ask you again. Where did you get that phone?"

I looked down, down at the flashing screen. Some kind of panic button, I guessed. Amy must have pushed it when Noelle showed up.

My fingers curled tighter around it, as though that simple hunk of plastic and silicon could somehow ground me amidst the hurricane of emotion that whirled around me.

"She must have dropped it," I said quietly. "When she was…kidnapped."

"Absorbed" was probably a better word, but I didn't care for the semantics of it, right then.

"Kidnapped?" the woman — _Brandish_ , that was her name, _Carol Dallon_ — asked sharply.

"A cape who was mutated by her powers wanted her help because she thought she could fix her," I explained woodenly. "She took Amy and a friend of mine and took off."

To do… I didn't know. Was she hoping to get revenge on all three of us and was just using Lisa and Amy to lure me in? Why not just fight me here, then?

Maybe she wanted to use Amy as a hostage and try to negotiate help from the PRT or the Protectorate? Would the PRT even be willing to negotiate, even if it was for Amy's sake? I didn't know about that, either.

There were a lot of things it seemed I didn't know, just then.

But…

I looked back down at the alarm on Amy's phone. Her panic button. A distress call to let everyone she cared about know that she needed rescued.

…whether I knew or not, the problem remained the same, and me standing there feeling sorry for myself wasn't going to solve it, was it?

Brandish frowned. "I see. Do you know where she was taken?"

No, I didn't know. Not for sure, not with absolute certainty. I'd have to check, just to be sure that I was right.

"Yeah."

But it wasn't that hard to figure it out, even if I didn't. It was obvious, really. After all, there weren't many places in this city where something of her size could hide, weren't that many places in the city that were abandoned enough for her to escape notice.

When you looked at it that way, there was only one real choice.

"The Trainyard."

What would happen when we got there? I… I didn't know.

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

 **The original version of this chapter was received rather poorly on Sufficient Velocity, and I wasn't super fond of it, either. This version is much better, in my opinion, and I hope you guys think so, too.**

 **As always, read, review, and enjoy.**

 **And for early access to chapters and bonus content:**

 **p a treon . com (slash) James_D_Fawkes**


	50. Tyranny 6-4

**Tyranny 6.4**

Much like the rest of the Docks, the Trainyard was, for the most part, abandoned. A train came through every now and again, a shipment from the outside world, and left with whatever meagre exports the remaining businesses in Brockton Bay had to offer, and a few brave — or maybe just desperate — squatters had taken over one or two of the shipping containers or one of old boxcars that had been left to rot. If the stories were to be believed, anyway.

But by and large, it was a figurative ghost town. Creepy. Empty. Nearly silent, without even the bustle of the city in the distance to give it life. Any sounds came from the howl of the whistling wind as it wove through the decaying train cars or the occasional _gong_ -like echo of some homeless guy stubbing his toe against one of the metal containers.

It was worse at night, under the dim light of the nearly-gone moon that hung in the sky as the faintest of slivers. The long, deep shadows cast over the tracks and gravel stretched and blurred together, such that they seemed to cover the entire trainyard, and the wind blowing through the old boxcars and around the containers was eerie, like the low, keening wail of some vengeful spirit that still haunted the tracks.

Even the light cast by New Wave's powers, used like lanterns to let us see in the gloom, only made it worse. Everything within ten or fifteen feet was brightly illuminated, plainly visible, but outside that little circle of light, the darkness seemed even starker, even deeper, and there was no telling what lurked inside of it.

We walked carefully, gravel crunching beneath our shoes. The air was chilly and thick with tension, such that it seemed to cling about our faces and prickle along our skin, and the entire group had clustered together in a way that spoke of experience and preparation, with the more vulnerable members wedged between what I assumed were their family's heaviest hitters. Somehow, I'd been made the leader, at least insofar as who stood in front went.

If I admired anything about them, the people Amy had told me so little of, it was how easily they seemed to be keeping themselves together. Their heads on straight. Like they knew what they were doing and how to handle themselves, even in a situation like this.

I was still off balance. My mind was still a mess of chaotic thoughts and emotions, still swirling and reeling from everything that had happened in the span these last few hours. I felt like I was completely out of my depth, like I'd been tossed into the deep end of a pool and told to sink or swim.

What would I do, when the inevitable confrontation happened? When we found Noelle, when it came time to fight her or fix her, what would I do?

Medea… Medea could probably fix her. Nimue, maybe. No, almost certainly. Of the caster types I knew and had used, was comfortable with, their experience with healing was the greatest. If either of those two couldn't solve the problem, was there any hero who could?

But would Noelle believe me, if I told her I could fix her? After Amy had tried and failed, after she'd shouted her blame at me and tried to attack me for it, would she even listen to a word I said?

I didn't know.

And what if I _did_ heal her? What if it worked exactly as she wanted and she got her human body back? What would happen to all of that extra mass? Would it just disappear, vanish into the air like so much vapor, or would it collapse in on itself and crush my two friends beneath the entirety of that bulk?

Had it already, for that matter? Had they been drawn in, only to be suffocated and broken beneath all of that flesh? Were they even alive for me to rescue, or would I find their shattered corpses, bones snapped and contorted, limbs bent in impossible directions, when everything was said and done? Would those two girls, my only friends, come out of there as anything more than two battered lumps of meat?

My fingers curled into fists and I took in a shaky breath, trying to steady myself, clamp down on my whirling emotions.

I didn't know. I just didn't know.

And what if I did? What if the only thing left at the end of this was me, holding the remains of the only two girls who had given me so much as the time of day in nearly two years? The only two girls who had decided to reach down into the well of my loneliness and pull me up, regardless of their own baggage or ulterior motives? What would I do? What would I…

I took another breath, let it out slow.

No. I knew exactly what I'd become, didn't I? What it was I'd been running from, why it was there was one hero I absolutely refused to touch. Along that pathway, there was only one end, only one answer, and it was one I wanted no part in. In that case, the one thing I must do was hope that they were alive and that they could be saved.

If I couldn't cling to that, then I was already beyond saving myself.

"You're certain that this is the right place?" asked Brandish, pulling me from my thoughts.

I was. I'd scouted ahead using Lunette, my familiar, just to be certain. I hadn't wanted to use Medea to scry, not when I had no idea how much I might need an Install if and when things degenerated into a fight. The last thing I wanted to do was exhaust myself, especially when I'd spent the last several days using my powers more in one go than I had since I'd gotten them.

"The trail stops here," I told her quietly.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her turn her head back to look behind us. She probably couldn't see it in the gloom, but when we'd passed it, the trail of destruction, of crumpling buildings, shattered windows, broken storefronts (well, _more_ broken than they'd been before), of street signs ripped out of the sidewalks and now train cars that had been bowled over, it was unmistakable. Noelle couldn't have given a more direct path for us to follow if she'd painted bright red arrows.

Then, it had abruptly stopped. Like she'd just suddenly vanished between one step and the next.

I didn't know what that meant, but none of the possibilities I could imagine were very good.

"She could have doubled back," Laserdream offered from behind us.

My lips pursed.

"No," I said. "This is the best place for her to hide. Lots of large containers, lots of open space to move around in, no one around to keep track of her."

It was why I'd figured she'd come here in the first place. There were certainly warehouses she could have hidden inside in the Docks, but those were all in the middle of one gang's territory or another, where she was likely to be noticed. The only ones who might be hanging out in the Trainyard were Merchants, and like as not, they'd be too stoned to try and pick a fight with a monstrous mass of meat and limbs like Noelle.

I had to hope I was right about this, too, because a fight somewhere else would mean a fight with more people around, more people I might have to _rescue_.

"The Travelers are nomadic," Brandish pointed out. "She may not even know that."

"But she came in this direction anyway," replied…Flashbang, I thought his name was. "And we have no idea how long they've been in the city, so we don't know if she does or not."

She made a sound of agreement, then changed the subject. "And you're _sure_ don't know anything else about her powers?"

I bit my lower lip. We'd already gone over this, but…

"No," I admitted. "I…I got the feeling that she wasn't really in control of her…her lower half, but if she can do anything else aside form absorb people, I don't know."

It still felt like I was missing something, like there _had_ to be more to her powers than just her monstrous lower body and the ability to absorb people who touched it, and it niggled almost incessantly in the back of my head.

But I just didn't _know_.

"You think she's one of _them_?" murmured one of the men.

"Maybe," said Brandish. "It's entirely possible."

"Them?" I asked.

"The PRT calls them Case 53s," Lady Photon told me. "Amnesiac parahumans who appear out of nowhere with no memory, no identification, and with powers that have somehow permanently altered their bodies."

"They're called 'monster capes' on PHO," Laserdream added helpfully.

"Crystal!" her mother scolded quietly.

'Monster capes,' huh… I could see it, yeah. Maybe Noelle _was_ one of those.

"Does it really matter _what_ she is?" asked Shielder, who was about my age. "What I want to know is what our plan of attack is. How are we getting Amy back?"

"Don't get in close, don't let her touch you," Brandish replied shortly.

"Was kinda hoping for something a little more concrete," he muttered.

"Be on the lookout for suspicious signs and symptoms," rumbled the taller of the two men. Manpower, I think his name was. "If you see unusual clouds or slimes, or if you start to feel sick or strange, retreat and let everyone know immediately. It's possible that absorbing a cape lets her use that cape's powers, either in full or in some diminished capacity."

My thoughts ground to a halt. _What?_

"That's why we'll be fighting at range, until we understand what we're dealing with, _Victoria_ ," said Brandish, looking pointedly in Glory Girl's direction. "Bad enough we might be dealing with _Panacea's_ powers, we don't need to give her access to _Brute_ and _Mover_ powers, as well."

Glory Girl said nothing. In fact, she'd been uncharacteristically silent this entire time.

I chewed on the inside of my cheek nervously.

If Noelle could use the powers of capes she absorbed…

That made me the biggest risk in this entire team, didn't it? Even if most of my close-range heavy hitters didn't run far too high a risk of hitting Lisa and Amy for me to be comfortable, if she captured me and started using their powers, their Noble Phantasms — or worse, if she could use Installs herself and access some of the truly frightening heroes in my repertoire…

Could the likes of Gawain or Herakles or Cuchulainn be captured and held the same way two teenage girls had been? Even if I didn't think so — and I wasn't sure enough of that to bet on it — was it a chance worth taking when the alternative put way too much power in the hands of someone who might not even be able to completely control her _own_ powers?

No. If — _when_ , because I had few illusions about whether or not Noelle would listen — it came to a fight, I'd have to fight at range. An archer, rather than a swordsman.

Which, now that I thought of it, seemed like the obvious choice. I wasn't sure why it hadn't occurred to me before, but Lisa and Amy were both wearing those amulets, which made an archer the only type of hero I could safely use without having to worry I might accidentally kill my only friends.

Perhaps somewhat strangely, the realization made me feel better, more confident in myself. I'd been agonizing over which hero I could use without risking my friends' lives, and I'd been floundering because my mind kept winding back to _her_ , but having a…a direction, for lack of a better term, let me focus on other options.

"Are we sure she's here?" Shielder asked into the chilly silence.

Lady Photon sighed. "Shielder, we just went over this."

"No, I mean…" He paused. "You said she's about the size of an elephant, right? With a human torso on top? Even in here, shouldn't we have seen her already?"

"Here, in the middle of the night, under a new moon?" Laserdream asked incredulously. "Our powers are the only reason we can see our hands in front of our faces!"

"I guess…"

"We wouldn't be here at all if it wasn't for _her_ …" Glory Girl muttered.

"Victoria!" Brandish said sharply. "This isn't the time or the place!"

A wave of sudden fear washed over me, and it took me a second to realize it was Glory Girl's aura, again.

"You know what?" she said. "No! I'm not gonna just keep pretending that we don't all know who it is under that mask! Or that she's the reason Amy got kidnapped in the first place!"

"Victoria!"

"She spends the weekend with her _friend_ ," Glory Girl went on, aura spiking with each word, "and then Sunday night, we get an alert from her phone, which leads us to the _ass end_ of the Docks, only to find out that she's been _kidnapped_ and _Apocrypha_ is the one holding her phone —"

"There is a time and a place for this, Victoria, and it will be addressed," Brandish cut across her, "but _this is not it_! Now, mind your —"

An unholy, metallic _screech_ cut her off, and one of the abandoned train cars in front of us was lifted off the tracks and _thrown_ in our direction.

I took a step back, cocking my fist, and prepared a _Thunder Feat_ — but I needn't have bothered, because a towering wall of blue light formed in front of me, and the wooden train car that slammed into it splintered, cracked, and broke like so much tinder.

Behind me, I heard someone — Shielder — gasp.

"Fuck!"

With the train car blocked, the wall of light flickered and vanished. For a split second, through the gloom, I thought I saw a massive, misshapen figure move and disappear again into the sea of train cars.

Noelle.

"Flare!" shouted Brandish.

The word had barely left her mouth before a blast of solid light shot up into the sky with a sound like a firework, where it exploded into a brief, twinkling orb, illuminating the trainyard for a scant few seconds. But there was no sign of anyone else, aside what might have been divots in the gravel off in the distance where Noelle had probably been.

The orb in the sky guttered and died.

"Where is she?"

"Right here."

The words were whispered into my ear, and I spun towards the voice — _Lisa's_ — hands rising on their own, only there was no one there.

 _What…?_

"Guh!"

Something _slammed_ into me from behind, and the force of it pushed me forward and towards the ground. Aife's training kicked in and I rolled with it, snapping back up to my feet. I reached for my back, at my spine, just behind my diaphragm, but there was no pain and my fingers didn't come away slick with blood. My barrier had absorbed the damage.

Across from me, arm outstretched, was…

"Amy?!" Glory Girl gasped.

No, it wasn't. I could see the resemblance, why someone would make that mistake, but the differences were obvious. Firstly and most glaringly, the _entire_ lower half of her right arm had been transformed into a long, vicious horn made entirely of bone, held outstretched from where she'd just _stabbed_ me.

"Damn," she said, sounding disappointed. "It didn't work."

Secondly, although it was Amy's face, it didn't look like Amy at all. The freckles were gone, the chheks narrower and leaner, the hips broader, the chest larger, her hair smoother and straighter, every part in perfect, flawless, _eerie_ symmetry. She was even _taller_. It was like someone had taken Amy and removed or altered every part she could possibly dislike about herself, every feature she might have been self-conscious of, leaving behind something that might have been one of Michelangelo's sculptures, for how "perfect" it was.

"Amy, what are you doing?" Glory Girl demanded. "She said you were kidnapped!"

"Oh, hello, Victoria." Not-Amy smiled, a charming, beatific thing that just looked _wrong_. "Could you do me a favor?"

"Uh…" Glory Girl hesitated. "Sure…?"

"Could you please die for me?"

I was moving before I even realized what I was doing, and suddenly I was standing in front of Glory Girl, shifting the bone spear up and over my shoulder, where it would pass harmlessly over Glory Girl's head instead of taking it off. Reflex more than intent pulled my other arm back, and it was only my brain catching up with me that let me blunt the _Thunder Feat_ that I unloaded into Not-Amy's gut.

It wasn't enough.

Horrified realization shot through me as Not-Amy's torso _exploded_ from the blow, showering the ground behind her in droplets of vivid, _glistening_ red. My stomach roiled in protest.

I'd just _killed_ her.

"Amy!" shouted Glory Girl. "Apocrypha, you bitch!"

But Not-Amy just looked at me, the blood pouring down her chin sinking back into her flesh like water into the desert sand, and gave me a frustrated scowl.

"Every time I think I've got a handle on it," she said, despite her shredded lungs, "you go and remind me just how bullshit you are."

And before my eyes, the upper half of her body bulged and stretched out like playdough, reaching down to connect with her lower half. Then, it snapped back up, pulling her legs back up into a standing position, and more fabric oozed out of her flesh to merge seamlessly with what she was already wearing. It was like she'd never been hurt, because even the blood on her clothes disappeared, too.

"Oh my god," someone whispered. It might have been me.

The horn of bone in my hand suddenly sank back into Not-Amy's elbow, leaving me holding air, and it was only reflex honed by Aife's training that pushed me back and out of the way as her other arm transformed similarly into a bone blade and swiped at me.

I landed almost ten feet away, body tense.

"What… What even…"

"Amy?"

"That's not Amy," said Brandish.

"No," Not-Amy agreed. "I'm everything Amy Dallon _should_ be."

She smiled that beatific smile again.

"And I'm going to kill each and every one of you."

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

 **Moving right along...**

 **This is actually the shortest chapter I've written for this entire story, I think. Originally, it was actually going to be longer, but I got to the start of the fight, realized I was already 3k words in, and looked at where the rest of the fight had to go, and I realized that it really would get to be too long - and more to the point, it'd take me too long to get there. With Labor Day, and my family's traditional party, taking place on Monday, I decided it was better to cut it off here, especially with such a cliffhanger line at the end, and get this part out rather than make you guys wait another day or even another week.**

 **Anyway. You guys get to see your first Amy clone, this week, although she doesn't have much screentime, yet. The name I use for this version in my notes is a very specific pop culture reference, so if you can guess it...cookies, I guess? The virtual kind. I'll honestly be surprised if no one manages to figure it out.**

 **As always, read, review, and enjoy.**

 **And for early access to chapters and bonus content:**

 **p a treon . com (slash) James_D_Fawkes**


	51. Tyranny 6-5

**Tyranny 6.5**

It was incredibly off-putting, seeing that smile and hearing that tone together coming from someone — or some _thing_ — that looked so much like my friend and yet so different. In that moment, I felt like a giant cliché, like I was in some kind of grim, tragic soap opera, the girl staring into the face of her friend's evil twin sister.

Was _that_ what this was? Was I looking at some twisted doppelganger, a projection created by Noelle's power or some kind of meat puppet? Or…

I swallowed around the lump in my throat and blinked away the prickling at the corners of my eyes.

Or was this the real Amy, twisted and Mastered by Noelle? Was my friend still in there, watching her body try to hurt and kill the people she cared about, or had her mind been perverted and warped the same way all of Heartbreaker's victims were?

Was there even anything left for me to save?

And in that case…when I'd heard Lisa's voice, earlier…was she, too…

All of a sudden, all that confidence I'd felt before, when I'd finally decided who I'd be using to fight Noelle, drained out of me like someone had pulled the rug out from under my feet.

"You're going to try, Amelia," said Brandish strongly, stepping forward. Somewhere along the line, a pair of swords made of blazing, glowing light had formed in her hands. "But we beat your father, before, and we can beat you, now."

But Not-Amy only grinned. "So, you did know. That smug bitch was right, then. Well, not like it makes much of a difference. Dear old daddy has _nothing_ on me."

"Mom, what are you doing?" hissed Glory Girl. "That's _Amy_!"

"No, it's not," Brandish only replied. "The Amy we knew is gone. _This_ is _Marquis's_ daughter."

No. No, I had to believe. I had to think I could save her. The alternative was simply too terrible to even consider.

"Weren't you listening, _Mom_?" asked Not-Amy with a devilish smile. "I just told you. I'm nothing like _Marquis_. I'm _much_ worse."

Three shafts made of sharpened bone leapt out from between the knuckles on her hands like claws, and she took off towards Brandish with cheetah-like speed — but I was already moving, and to me, with my _Vantage_ , she might as well have been moving in slow motion.

A single step took me back in front of her, placing me between her and the rest of New Wave, and my arm lashed out, took hold of her wrist, and I spun around, carrying her with me, and threw her to the ground. Before she had enough time to do more than let out an "oof," I dropped my body weight down on her and pinned her with my knee, the arm in my hand twisted into that same submission hold I'd used in the bank what felt now like a lifetime ago.

It wouldn't hold her for long. With how her power had been changed and warped, with what she could do with it now, she could get out of it just as fast as I'd put her into it. I just needed her stunned and off guard for a few seconds.

"What did you do to the real Amy, Noelle?" I demanded.

I didn't know if she could actually hear me through Not-Amy, but at the very least, Noelle would have Lisa's power in some way, shape, or form, right now. There was no way she didn't know what I was saying.

The girl beneath me laughed. "I _am_ the real Amy!"

I pulled harder on the arm, but it didn't seem to bother her at all. If she had such absolute control over her body, maybe she'd even turned off her pain receptors.

"No, you're not," I asserted. I wished I was as confident as I sounded. "Amy would never have tried to hurt any of us."

"You're so fucking sure of that, are you?" spat the girl underneath me, suddenly furious. "Maybe I just got fucking tired of watching Vicky fawn over Dean and you bend over backwards for a girl who didn't deserve the time of day from you!"

The flesh underneath me started to bubble and bulge.

"Maybe I just decided," she went on, "that if _I_ can't have you, no one else gets to, either!"

Instinct commanded me to move, but before I could push myself off and away from her, someone snagged me from behind by the collar of my vest and yanked me back. As I watched, Not-Amy's body erupted into spikes of sharpened bone, jutting out like some kind of human porcupine, perfectly and unnaturally still.

If she'd hit me with that… I wasn't sure I would've survived it.

My savior dropped me unceremoniously on the ground, and I stumbled a little, but managed to keep myself on my feet.

"Thanks," I said quietly.

"I don't like you, but I'm not gonna let you _die_ ," Glory Girl muttered acidly.

"Marquis made use of a similar tactic, back when he was in power," Brandish told me, as though Glory Girl hadn't spoken. Then, she raised her voice. "You won't win this by using tactics like that, _Amelia_! Your father learned that the hard way!"

"Carol," murmured Lady Photon, "I'm not sure this is a good idea…"

"We beat Marquis," Brandish affirmed. "We can beat her, too."

"Yeah, but this time, we don't have…"

"Me, hiding in the closet."

The spikes quivered, then retracted and melted back into Not-Amy's flesh. Slowly, sinuously, she slid to her feet and turned back around to face us. As though nothing had happened at all, there was not a wrinkle in her clothing, and not a hair was out of place.

"Haven't you been listening, _Mom_?" She was smiling again. "I'm _not_ Daddy Dearest. You _can't_ beat me the same way you beat him. I'm better, smarter, I have a _way_ better power —"

A sickening _squelch_ cut her off, and I whipped around towards the sound, to find Brandish, mouth agape, gasping, weapons flickering and vanishing, with a blood-splattered _arm_ sticking out of her chest.

What?

"You talk too much, Amelia," a new voice rasped.

"Mom!"

Glory Girl was the first to move, the gravel beneath her spraying out as she took off towards the assailant. But the newcomer spun and yanked her arm back, and Glory Girl crashed headlong into a gurgling, choking Brandish, taking them both to the ground in a tangled heap.

"Carol!"

"No!"

Blasts of light streaked across the open air, but the newcomer danced back and out of the way with an almost feline grace, putting distance between us and her, watching us with an unblinking, predatory gaze. For a moment, it flickered towards me.

She almost caught me off guard, that was how fast and vicious she was. It was the glint of something metallic in her hand that kicked my brain into gear, and I ducked under the swing of her arm with a _Folding_ , then retaliated with a punch of my own towards her gut — not another Thunder Feat, but definitely enough to _hurt_.

She took it like it was nothing. A slight, weak "oomph" passed through her lips, but there was no indication — no scream, no shout, none of the usual sounds of pain — that she'd been any more bothered than if I had thrown a pillow at her.

She _did_ back away, again, and I took that moment to glance over at New Wave, who had all huddled around Brandish. Lady Photon was doing something with her forcefields, making some kind of pressure bandage or something to keep Brandish from bleeding out, but that couldn't last too long.

Damn it. Fuck. And if I tried to bring out Medea to heal her —

I turned back towards the newcomer.

— _she_ would definitely try and stop me, wouldn't she?

The newcomer was completely naked, giving me a better look at her than I really wanted. She was shorter, thinner, more compact than Not-Amy. Maybe four and a half feet tall, with a narrow body comprised almost entirely of lean, wiry muscle, to the point of looking unhealthy. Her skin was bronze and leathery, tough and weathered-looking, and it made the creases at her mouth, around her eyes, ringing her neck, seem all the deeper.

She barely looked human. The general shape was right, but the details were simply off, and off drastically.

But even through the leathery skin, even through the gaunt, hollowed cheeks, even through the sunken eyes and the pitch black freckles that seemed to suck in the light, her face was unmistakably Amy's.

"What?"

A second Amy…? Did that mean…?

It was like the thought that had been niggling at me all night had clicked into place in the back of my head, and it suddenly seemed so _obvious_. Clones. Of course. Noelle's power — she absorbed people into her body, using them as templates to form doppelgangers, and then those doppelgangers were _twisted_ until both their powers and their personalities didn't even resemble the original, anymore.

 _That_ was why Not-Amy's power was so different from what I'd seen her do before, and that was why she was so different, so strange, so _not Amy_.

That thing is —

"Clones!" I shouted to New Wave. "Neither of those things is the real Amy, they're all just clones!"

"Ugh," said the first Not-Amy. "I knew you'd figure it out the moment you saw Claire. That smug bitch was so sure it'd take you awhile, but her opinion of your intelligence is —"

"Amelia," said the second Not-Amy — Claire, apparently, "shut up and kill them already."

"Fine, fine," the first Not-Amy — Amelia — groused. "Ruin all of my fun, why don't you."

I tensed, getting ready to fight.

But I needn't have bothered, because a blast of red light shot out and caught the second, Claire, in the chest, throwing her back several feet, and at the same time, Glory Girl, screaming a furious war cry, blasted off and _slammed_ into Amelia like a freight train.

"You! Fucking! Bitch!" she bellowed in time with each punch. Amelia just took it as she was carried off, and I could see her flesh deform like putty with each hit, only to reshape itself like a rubber band snapping back.

As Claire pulled herself to her feet and Glory Girl continued to whale on Amelia, Laserdream and Manpower stepped up to face one while Flashbang moved to join his daughter. An instant later, a bright blue forcefield in the shape of a dome sprang up around Shielder, Brandish, and Lady Photon.

For a moment, I didn't move, and I glanced back and forth between the two clones and the people arrayed to fight them. I wasn't sure who I should be standing with. Which one needed my —

"Apocrypha!" shouted Lady Photon. "Go! Find Noelle! Get the _real_ Amy back! Now!"

Startled, I turned towards her. "What?"

"Go get the real Amy!" she repeated forcefully.

I hesitated. That would mean leaving them alone to fight these clones by themselves. Could they do that? I didn't know their limits or their powers intimately enough to say so.

And as selfishly as I wanted to save Lisa and Amy, I didn't want to leave Amy's family to die.

"But —"

"The sooner you get Amy, the sooner she can save my sister!" she snapped back. "Go! Now!"

"I can heal —"

"I _know_ ," she said impatiently, "but the more time you spend here, the more clones Noelle can make, which means the more of them we'll have to _fight_. _Go_ , before she makes a whole army!"

I hesitated for a second longer, then turned and left as swiftly as my feet would carry me. She was right, even if I hated to acknowledge it. This would only get more unmanageable if Noelle kept making more clones, so someone needed to stop her, first.

"Flashbang," I heard Lady Photon say behind me, "contact the Protectorate, bring them up to speed, tell them to bring their best healer —"

I ran deeper into the Trainyard, until the sounds of the fighting faded almost to nothing. Aside the marks in the gravel from where she'd been when she flipped that train car at us, however, there were no other obvious signs of Noelle or where she'd gone off to hide. The gravel simply wasn't deep enough for her to have left a more obvious trail, and it was too dark for me to really keep track of the one that might have been there.

Damn it. I wanted to wait until I knew where she was, so I could reduce the amount of time I spent in an Install and conserve my energy, but —

"She said you'd come."

I skidded to a halt and whirled around towards the voice, fists rising of their own accord, and came face to face with —

I blanched.

What the…

"She said you'd be alone, too," said the… It must have been another Amy clone.

But it looked almost nothing like the other two. The other two, at least, had looked _mostly_ human. Grotesque, in Claire's case. But the face had been shaped like a human face, the body like a human body, and even if Claire had been unnaturally thin and short and muscular, her proportions had been all symmetrical, like the human body.

What was in front of me had almost none of that. Four limbs, one head, hair, skin, a mouth, yes. But one eye was small and beady, and the other was large and bulging beneath a protruding brow. Her right arm was swollen and heavy, with a four-fingered hand, and her feet were almost comically large and cumbersome. Her lower jaw was thrust forward in a horrendous underbite, with large, misshapen teeth that protruded over her upper lip.

And like Claire, her skin was bronze and leathery. If it wasn't for the stark freckles and the mousy brown hair, I wouldn't have recognized her.

"You're…another clone of Amy."

The clone nodded.

"I don't have a name," she said. "Not like the others do. But they called me the Fingerpainter."

She hefted her misshapen arm, wiggling her fingers a little. "My power's like Mom's power," she went on, "only not so much on the small details. Big picture. Large scale changes."

"Are you going to try and fight me?" I asked cautiously.

She shook her lumbering head. "She told me to tell you where to go."

I wasn't sure how much I should trust her, if I could at all. But it wasn't like I had any better ideas for how to find Noelle, right then, without spending energy on another Install.

"Where?"

The clone pointed off into the dark.

I hesitated for a second, then awkwardly said, "Thank you."

"Wait!" she called as I turned to leave. I stopped. "Can… can you do me a favor?"

My lips thinned into a line. "Maybe."

Although if this one asked me to die, the way Amelia did —

"Please kill me."

My brain crashed to a halt.

What?

"Please. Kill me," she repeated.

"Why…" I said shakily. "Why would you even ask something like that?"

"I'm a monster," she told me, eyes watering. "I was made only to suffer and cause suffering. I have no future and nothing worth living for. No family, no friends. No life at all. The only mercy I can ask for is to die quickly and painlessly."

In spite of everything, in spite of how she was made, whose image she'd been made in, who had made her, I found myself pitying her. Almost against my will, my heart ached.

She was a clone. If she was anything like the others, she was a perversion of the real Amy, and it wasn't at all unlikely that she could try to lie and manipulate me.

Even so, that didn't change how I felt.

"You…"

"So please. Kill me. Let me die."

I shook my head. "I-I'm sorry," I told her. "But I can't. I… Even if I believed all of that, I just…I…"

 _That's not a path I can walk down_.

She gave me a wet smile. "She said you'd say that."

She stepped back, curling in herself and sagging as though some great weight rested upon her shoulders. Her bulging eye looked up at me, met mine, and she gestured vaguely in the direction she'd pointed to earlier.

"You'd better get going, then," she said quietly.

I hesitated.

"I'm sorry."

It seemed wholly inadequate and not at all like what I should have said, but I didn't have the time or the words that she might have needed, just then, nor the expertise necessary for them to be anything more than empty air. That simple, paltry apology was all I could give her.

I turned around and took off, and this time, there was no waiting. If the Fingerpainter was right, if she hadn't been lying, then I was headed directly towards Noelle and the fight, and if, as I now suspected, the "she" she'd been talking about was Lisa — a clone of Lisa — then I was also walking directly into a trap.

I reached into and through myself and grasped my chosen hero.

"Set," I said between breaths as I ran. "Install."

Between one step and the next, I transformed, shrinking a good five inches. My hair lengthened, straightening, and out of the corner of my eyes, I saw the strands turn green and gold. My ears shifted up to the top of my head, twisting and morphing into furry, feline triangles, as a tail sprouted and swayed behind me. My costume flowed into a green and black dress with a pleated skirt, embroidered with golden designs, and a pair of gauntlets and armored, thigh-high boots.

Chaste Huntress Atalanta, an archer of incredible skill. She had the keenest of eyesight, capable of seeing and striking the tiniest of targets over great distances.

She was also the furthest altered of the heroes I'd yet used, with the cat ears and tail, compared to Medea's tame elf ears. In another situation, I might have been more nervous about dealing with something like that, but there was no time to worry about something that seemed so insignificant, now.

The world opened up around me, and it was suddenly like I'd been blind and deaf my entire life. Atalanta's ears picked up every sound, even New Wave's battle in the distance, and her eyes saw with such incredible detail that I could make out the tiniest of imperfections on the railcars around me. Even in the dark of the new moon, everything was as clear as daylight. Washed out, in shades of grey and blue and black, but so crisp and clear that it was almost breathtaking.

Almost. No time to get distracted by that, either.

The railcars started to shift and the paths between them began to narrow as I went, and it didn't take me long to realize that it was intentional, that it had likely been arranged that way specifically to herd me in the direction Noelle wanted me to go. To control when and where our fight started. It was so painfully obviously an ambush.

How she'd managed to arrange that so quickly, I had no idea. It wasn't like New Wave and I had taken more than an hour to follow her here.

It was fine, either way. I'd let Noelle have the initiative, spring her trap, and then I'd adjust my course of action based upon that.

The path that had been laid out for me led to a dead end, but it was no obstacle at all for Atalanta. In fact, through her, it felt like one of the many footraces she'd been through, dancing along and outside the beaten path, taking to the trees and the branches with casual grace, jumping along without the slightest change in stride, and I leapt up, a carefree smile starting to break over my face, just high enough to set down a single foot on the roof of the railcar —

And then I almost took a shipping pallet to the face.

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

 **So, a little shorter than usual again, but this time, it's because I realized I was going to run up against that 6k threshold and split it in half, again. 6.6 and 6.7 will be almost entirely fighting in some shape or form, though, so there is that.**

 **As for the Amy variants, I decided to take each of Amy's negative thoughts and feelings and push them to the extremes, instead of just making them generically nasty and evil. That's why there's "Amelia," who is all of Amy's envy and jealousy, but also the Fingerpainter, who is all of Amy's self-loathing and self-doubt. It's not _exactly_ how they're usually portrayed in canon and fanfic, but I took a bit of liberty to make them more interesting characters. "They're evil because they're evil" doesn't make for compelling villains.**

 **As always, read, review, and enjoy.**

 **And for early access to chapters and bonus content:**

 **p a treon . com (slash) James_D_Fawkes**


	52. Tyranny 6-6

**Tyranny 6.6**

I bent over backwards as my momentum carried me into a slide, twisting as the pallet soared over me, then pushed my legs out from under me and flipped in midair to land on the balls of my feet.

My heels had barely touched back down before I was attacked by a _gargoyle_ , of all things, a hulking brute of a beast with grey, pebbly scales for skin and long, wicked looking talons at the end of each of its limbs. It swiped at me, but it seemed so _slow_ , so half-hearted, and I thrust myself back far enough to draw my bow as it appeared in my hands like magic.

It was almost frightening, how familiar and comfortable it felt as I pulled back on the bowstring and formed an arrow from my own power. Easy. Like second nature. It was the same as that first night those weeks ago, when I had faced a man turned dragon, and with Siegfried's strength and skill, effortlessly cut him apart.

And just as effortlessly as I had hacked off Lung's limbs, I pinned the gargoyle's foot to the ground.

That should hold it. Even something like that gargoyle would —

Except it didn't. The gargoyle didn't seem to care at all about its foot and just tore itself free, mangling it in the process such that it was more like strips of flesh hanging from its ankle.

Warily, I retreated — and dodged a piece of gravel that whizzed past my head like a bullet, when I caught sight of it out of the corner of my eye — and considered my opponent. It was hard to judge, with a face like that, but there was no apparent pain and it didn't treat the injury gingerly, and — my eyes flickered over to my arrow, embedded in the ground — no blood, either.

No blood? Even a Brute-Changer like Lung had…

Ah. No, that made sense, didn't it?

I backed even further away as it came after me again, just to give myself enough breathing room, then drew my bowstring back, notched an arrow, and blew its head off in a shower of blocky chunks. The body kept going and tumbled, sliding to a halt at my feet, and then, before my eyes, started to dissolve a moment later, like whatever mold or shell had been holding it together had been broken.

A projection. As I'd thought. Something that had no blood and didn't feel pain, that wasn't worried about destroying parts of its body? That was all it could have been. Only high class regenerators like Lung could and would continue to fight, unimpeded even by serious injury, without care.

No one wanted to be crippled, after all.

The gargoyle had barely vanished before my other assailant started attacking in earnest, suddenly bombarding me with bits of gravel on rapidfire. They came at me as though from an automatic rifle, one after another after another, forcing me to dodge each as I tracked them with Atalanta's superhuman eyesight.

That first shot, it seemed, had been made with care so as not to hit his ally. Now that there wasn't any chance of that, he could unload on me as much as he liked and keep going as long as he had gravel to launch.

I clicked my tongue, frustrated and annoyed. Another distraction keeping me from Noelle. Another cape getting in the way of my hunt.

A Blaster, maybe? Whose power was shooting bits of gravel? That seemed kind of stupid, though. No, there'd been that pallet that had been shot at my head, too, hadn't there? So a Blaster whose power was to accelerate objects to high speeds. Limitations? Did he need to touch them, or was it line-of-sight based? For that matter, did he have any sensory enhancements that made aiming easier?

Frustratingly, I didn't have the answers, and what made it worse was that I was fairly sure Lisa could have given them to me, if I'd had her there.

Fine. I grunted, and a bare moment later, the barrage came to a stop — he was out of ammo. I traced the path of the last bit of gravel back to its source, just in time to see a hulking brute of a man dressed in angular red and black body armor sandwiched between two train cars reaching down to grab more gravel.

You're in my way.

I lifted Tauropolos, my bow. I wasn't going to give him the chance to keep shooting at me.

The world seemed to slow down as I pulled back upon the bowstring and an arrow formed from a flash of blue light. A breath. A heartbeat. I zeroed in on my target, eyes narrowing as my vision seemed to sharpen and the world condensed itself into that single moment. For those few seconds of forever, that instant of eternity, nothing else existed except me, my bow, and my target.

Another breath, let out slow, another heartbeat. My hand steadied, my mind centered, and my fingers began to let go — and, with a horrified jolt, I barely managed to tighten them back around the bowstring as I realized what I'd just been about to do.

A killshot. I'd been about to shoot him through the heart with an arrow at full power. There was enough strength behind this bow that it would have _obliterated_ him.

It had been so long since Lung, I'd forgotten what it was like to use an Install in battle. How the hero's instincts and reflexes could affect my actions, how her mindset and thought patterns could influence my own. How she could overwhelm me and almost take me over, if I let her.

I eased back on Tauropolos' draw, back down to something that wouldn't be instantly lethal, and adjusted my aim, then let my arrow fly.

It was fast. Faster than fast. If I'd been in my normal state, I probably wouldn't have even seen it move, that was how fast the arrow flew. It crossed the distance in less than a second —

"FUCK!"

— and slammed home so hard that it actually knocked my target off his feet.

His shoulder should be all but destroyed, now. I hadn't aimed for anything vital, but the damage to the muscles and bones should be enough that he wasn't able to use that arm, anymore. In fact, without a healer to fix it, it would likely be permanent. Maybe if he'd been an innocent bystander, it might've meant more to me, but someone who was attacking me?

Amy or I could handle it once this was all over.

"YOU FUCKING BITCH!" he screamed as I walked over towards him. "YOU FUCKING SHOT ME, YOU BITCH!"

He was cradling his ruined shoulder, although the arrow kept it from bleeding too much, and up close, he seemed all that much bigger. He was covered head to toe, so there was no indication of how old he was, but he sounded closer to my age than my dad's, and while the armor likely added to his bulk, he was tall and broad and muscular. Like a football player.

He tried to get up as I came upon him, but my foot pinning his wrist to the ground sent him falling back into the gravel with another pained cry.

"Stay down," I told him shortly. The words felt like they came from Atalanta as much as me.

"F-fuck you," he ground out.

I frowned down at him, and for a moment, I considered notching another arrow and pinning his hand to the ground, just to be sure he was out of the fight. That was definitely Atalanta, though, and far more violent than necessary, besides. Scaring him should work just as well.

Quick as lightning, I notched another arrow and drew the bowstring back, then sent it straight down into the ground a couple inches above his injured shoulder. _CRACK_ was the sound of the impact, and bits of gravel and dirt went flying as he flinched away from the noise. When he looked back around, there was a crater, almost six inches across, where my arrow had hit.

I couldn't see his face, but Atalanta's sensitive nose could smell the nervous sweat that broke out across his body. Privately, I thanked whoever was listening that he hadn't wet himself.

"Stay down," I repeated frigidly. "Or next time, I'll aim for your _hands_."

I couldn't see his face, but I liked to imagine he went very, very pale, because he also went very, very still. I wasn't sure he hadn't stopped _breathing_.

I gave it another few seconds to sink in, then lifted my foot off of his arm and stepped past him and through the railcars, out into… The only way I could think to describe it was to call in an arena. A wide, open expanse, boxed in on all sides by more railcars. In the distance, I could see shipping containers stacked atop each other like Jenga blocks and a few warehouses, likely abandoned or at least almost empty.

No sign of Noelle. In the eerie quiet, the only one there with me, aside the man I'd just left behind, was a single, solitary girl, standing in the middle of the arena. She had blonde hair, colored almost white in this light, and looked completely and utterly human, and though she was dressed in rags rather than her costume or the designer clothes she preferred, there was no mistaking that grin.

Lisa.

Or a clone of her, at least.

My lips thinned into a line and I walked towards her, watching cautiously for the sneak attack. My eyes flitted about, searching every possible hiding spot, every nook and cranny where Noelle might try and hide.

But as I stopped ten feet away from Not-Lisa, no ambush had manifested. No enemy had struck at me. Despite ample opportunity, I had been left alone.

"…Lisa," I said at length.

"Taylor," Not-Lisa mimicked me mockingly.

"Where's Noelle?" I asked.

Not-Lisa's grin grew wider. "She's here. Or there. Or somewhere. Who's to say, really?"

Don't play with me!

"No games!" I snapped.

She laughed, a cruel, condescending sound that I had never heard from Lisa's lips before. It was equal parts irritating and off-putting, and it simultaneously made me want to deck her and pretend I'd never heard it at all.

"That's funny, coming from you, because you've been playing games since you got your powers, haven't you?"

My brain stalled.

"What?"

"Don't play dumb, now," she mocked. "I mean really, using binding magical oaths to enforce behavior you like and discourage behavior you don't? Setting lethal traps in your front yard for any idiot burglar to stumble onto and get himself killed? Taking your friends along to sneak into the base of a megalomaniac with no more protection than what amounts to a particularly effective bulletproof vest?"

I flinched.

"That's not —"

"Did you think that Lisa — that _I_ hadn't noticed?" she cut across me.

"I was —"

"Your powers should make you a lion," she went on as though I hadn't spoken. "Instead, you're a kitten, huddling in the corner, so afraid of what you can do and what you _might_ do that you've crippled yourself. You're so afraid of what'll happen that you can't even trust _yourself_."

"Shut up," I snapped.

But she kept going, her grin stretching further and further with each word. A hint of… _something_ hid in the corners of it, something familiar that I didn't recognize. "Speaking of trust, you have a lot of trouble with that, don't you? You're so paranoid about being betrayed that you enforce it with _magical oaths_ that can _kill you_ if you break them. And you're so afraid to trust people that you put one on your own _father_ , just to make sure he wears that amulet, rather than trying explaining why it's necessary — you know, like a healthy, well-adjusted person does."

"Shut up!" I snarled, taking a threatening step forward.

"The ironic thing is, you're so afraid of breaking _other_ people's trust and risking their friendship that you do things like let them follow you into a secret supervillain base, even though you could've done the entire thing by yourself. It's actually kind of sad that you're so insecure, really. There's so many of your problems that would be solved if you just stopped running away from them."

"SHUT UP!" I roared and threw myself at her. The distance closed almost in an instant, and I was upon her like a rocket. I didn't know what I was going to do to her, what would happen when I reached her. I just wanted to shut her up.

But there was no surprise on her face as I got near. No shock. No recoil away from my fists. Only a grimly satisfied smile.

"And there's your biggest problem," she mumbled. "You can't stop lying to yourself."

BOOM — it echoed through the makeshift arena, and I stumbled as the local air pressure suddenly dropped. It accompanied a flicker, a brief flash of light so swift and so sudden that I wasn't sure I hadn't imagined it, and suddenly —

Not-Lisa was gone. And in her place —

"Shit!"

She'd planned it, I realized as I tried to regain my bearings and backpedal. That was the entire reason why Not-Lisa had been there, waiting for me. She'd planned to get me to drop my guard by needling me with the things I hadn't wanted to think about, that this was all my fault because I hadn't just taken care of everything myself. That I was so wrapped up in myself and my own insecurities that I hadn't even considered objecting to bringing Lisa and Amy along on this fucked up adventure.

I couldn't get my bearings fast enough. Before I could get my feet back under me properly, one of Noelle's tentacles lashed out at me and took hold of my arm, taking advantage of my unbalanced footing to try and yank me into the mass of mottled meat.

 _No. I'm not going to let you stop me from rescuing my friends!_

Because even if this _was_ my fault, I wasn't about to just lie down and let her take me.

I snarled and smashed my foot into the ground in front of me, throwing up a spray of gravel, and although the tentacle was strong, it was _not_ as strong as me, as Atalanta. No matter how hard it tried, it couldn't pull me in any further.

"Let go of me!"

I let my trapped arm go slack, then yanked it back as hard as I could as far as I could, and the tentacle was ripped free with a spray of brackish, foul-smelling bile that splattered all over me.

"Ugh!"

I leapt back and away, holding my nose closed with my other hand, as the limp tentacle flopped to the ground, still wriggling. It really was much worse with Atalanta's enhanced senses, and it had been pretty terrible beforehand. Unfortunately, I couldn't fight like that, so I grimaced and let go, trying not to focus on the stench that clung to me, now.

I didn't have a moment to breathe. The bulging mass that was Noelle was upon me almost immediately, rushing towards me at that still ridiculous speed.

Even if she was surprisingly fast for her size, however, Noelle still wasn't as fast as me, and especially, she wasn't as nimble. Something that size couldn't just stop and start and change directions on a dime, because she still had to obey the limitation called 'physics.'

I was thankful, in a strange way, as I leapt away from her, though. In a fight, with Atalanta there in my head, there was no room for thinking about what Not-Lisa had said. I had to focus entirely on the enemy in front of me.

Midair, I pulled back on Tauropolos' string, forming an arrow, and let it go at full draw. Noelle let out a cry as it hit, carving away one of her tentacles and gouging out a huge section of flesh as it hit like an exploding rocket.

I landed as she staggered, but whether or not it hurt, it didn't stop her for long. She snarled and kept coming, building up speed, again.

You think you can catch me?

I didn't give her the chance to come close. My mistake with Not-Lisa had given her that first chance, but I wasn't going to be repeating it, now. I leapt back again, notched the bowstring, and let three more arrows loose into her bulging lower body, carving away more and more flesh with each hit.

The distance increased to thirty meters. I landed, then leapt back and away again, high into the sky — ten, fifteen, thirty feet, higher than any ordinary human could possibly manage. From up there, with a bird's eye view of the battlefield, I looked down on Noelle, who had stumbled to a stop and turned to look up at me, and readied my bow again.

"Ha!"

One arrow, at full draw, rocketed down towards her at thrice the speed of sound. It scythed through her outer flank, and a large swathe of the mottled meat simply disappeared as though scooped away by the hand of God, spilling that brackish bile across the gravel.

"Ha!"

A second arrow, at full draw, gouged away even more on the opposite flank. Noelle let out a scream, although whether or not she actually felt any pain, I had no idea. At that moment, it didn't matter to me, anyway.

"Ha!"

A third arrow slammed into the center of that mass, exploding from the force of the impact and sending yet more of that bile over the ground in front of her.

A fourth arrow was drawn back along the bow, but I kept tight hold of it as I landed — with all the grace of a cat — along the roof of one of the railcars that formed the boundary of our arena. My lips pulled tight, and I stared down the shaft towards my target.

I couldn't say it wasn't tempting. Especially since I was strangely sure her human half would simply regenerate, it wasn't like I would actually be doing anything I couldn't take back. In fact, it would probably buy me a few seconds to consider a stronger plan of attack while she _did_ regenerate.

But the off chance I might be _wrong_ stopped me.

I shifted my aim and let that fourth arrow fly.

"Ha!"

And it crashed right next to where the last one had, popping one of the monstrous heads like an inflamed boil.

Noelle screamed.

And then retreated, moving back towards the line of railcars at the other end of the arena.

I scowled and drew back another arrow. If I had to carve away at her a handful at a time until I found my friends, then that was just what I'd have to do.

"That's just like you, isn't it?" Lisa's voice whispered in my ear. I ignored her and took aim. "Did you never consider the possibility?"

"Shut up," I mumbled.

But just as I was about to fire, the doors to all of the railcars were suddenly thrown wide open, and from inside of them came pouring out what had to be several dozen misshapen, barely human creatures, looking more like the Fingerpainter than the Not-Lisa who had been waiting here for me.

I froze.

Behind me, there were whoops and growls as more clones started to pull themselves up and onto the roof of my railcar.

"That there were more people inside of her than just your friends?"

 _No_. I hadn't. The thought hadn't even crossed my mind that she might start absorbing…what, the homeless people who called the Trainyard home? That was the only people these clones could have been made from, and I hadn't considered for even a moment that she might try and use them against me. Why would I? They had no powers and none of the emotional connection that Lisa and Amy did.

But she had Lisa, and with that, obviously, Lisa's knowledge. And if she had that, then she would obviously also know that I wouldn't, that I _couldn't_ risk their lives, too.

 _Damnit!_

I whirled around and leapt off of my perch, high into the air. As quickly as I could, I notched more arrows and took aim, pinning as many feet to the roof of the railcar as I could. I tried to convince myself that the screams, the obvious pain, didn't get to me. That I felt nothing at all from seeing them suffer.

But I was just lying to myself. Atalanta was just what made it easier to believe.

I landed in the middle of the yard again, and leapt back off almost immediately as the clones tried to swarm me. I pinned a few more feet to the ground as the wind whistled past my ears, but even before my eyes, the clones were yanking the arrows free and continuing on, limping and injured but undaunted.

I came back down again on the roof of another railcar, much closer now to Noelle, who spun around and started towards me again, now that I was in range. I lifted Tauropolos and notched another arrow, and I hesitated, glancing for a short moment at the army of clones that had turned to come my way, too.

 _Damnit_. There was no way, was there? Atalanta didn't have the hand to hand skills needed. Her non-lethal options were limited entirely to hitting spots that wouldn't be immediately fatal. If I wanted to face this entire group with her, it was almost inevitable that I would have to resort to killing blows, and even if I managed somehow to avoid that, it was also entirely possible that I might make a mistake or miscalculate and kill someone with one of my shots anyway.

I had to switch. I'd been holding onto my next Install for the moment when I needed Medea, just so I could be sure I had enough energy left to pull it off, but…

Damnit. Who could I use? If I tried Medea…but no, a niggling something in the back of my head told me trying to put Noelle and the clones to sleep would be a bad idea, even if it would take care of her current army. I needed someone with lots of hand to hand skill, who could fight and —

No, that was perfect, wasn't it?

I leapt back up into the air as high as Atalanta's legs would carry me, and then I let her go.

"Release!"

And before I reached the apex of my jump, I reached into and through myself and grabbed the hero I needed.

"Set! Install!"

I hit the ground much less gracefully than I had as Atalanta, but Aífe's legs took the impact just as well. Immediately, I was beset by clones, but I danced around them and severed one's tendons at the back of the knees, sending it crashing into the gravel. A flick threw red blood from the tip of the crimson spear in my hand.

If I couldn't carve away at Noelle until I found Lisa and Amy, then I'd just have to force her to let them go.

A simple enough task.

Another came and I ducked under its blow, turning to quickly carve a single rune on its bare chest with my raw power.

"Suidigidir!"

Nauthiz glowed, and immediately, the clone went limp and fell to the ground.

One of the runes that went into the binding that had held Bakuda. A simple spell that restrained freedom, rendering the target incapable of movement. Like this, with Aífe, trying for something more complex without more time and effort was out of the question, but it would do.

I made my way slowly through the crowd of clones, trapping each one that came close with Nauthiz, sometimes drawn on the chest and sometimes drawn on the back. One by one, they fell, limp and lifeless, to the ground. It was almost frightening, how easy it was to do it. How quickly and efficiently I was making my way through them. Almost before I knew it, half of them were lying around and behind me, utterly defeated.

Noelle, however, didn't seem like she was going to wait until I'd gotten all of them.

She rushed me, and I met her in kind, rushing towards her across the open ground. The moment I got close, I leapt up and over her head, coming close enough that our eyes met for a single instant. Before my feet even touched the gravel again, she was spinning around, grotesque limbs lashing out and trying to capture me, to draw me into her.

But I leapt out of the way, towards the side, then up again and over her head. She growled, shouted at me to stand still, but Aífe was too nimble, too fast. I was always gone, always moving again before any of her monstrous parts could grab hold of me.

And each time I landed, I dropped down to one knee and dragged my fingers through the gravel.

It took no less than eighteen such jumps, adding to my pattern with every single one, to finish the design I needed. I taunted her each time, subtly, making sure to be just barely out of reach, to keep her from retreating or moving on.

And when at last it was ready, I backed away out of range of her grasp and knelt down to activate the array I'd just drawn around her.

"Suidigidir."

When it came to raw proficiency, Aífe could be said to be of the same level as her sister. Both had received the same instruction, after all, and both had remarkable talent. Rather than the difference being _what_ Aífe could do compared to Scáthach, it was a matter of how quickly, how efficiently, and how creatively she could do it. Quality, rather than capacity.

What Scáthach could do swiftly and easily mid-battle, Aífe required time, effort, and concentration to accomplish.

That was why she preferred her sword, her spear, her own fists to magic. Swinging her sword, throwing her spear, punching her enemies in the face — none of those required her to stop, to interrupt the flow of her fighting and change the direction of her thoughts and her focus. All she needed was her brutal strength and her sublime martial skill. All she needed was to be stronger, faster, _better_ than her enemy.

But simply because she _preferred_ one way didn't mean she _couldn't_ do the other.

"Gleipnir!"

Ribbons of pale pink light shot up from the ground. They soared, they lashed, and they wrapped tightly around the body of the monster. Snagging, squeezing, they latched onto whatever part they could reach — her arms, her torso, the bulging mass of meat, the myriad of grotesque limbs that jutted from it at random. They latched and they wound and they pulled taut from all angles, yanking her from all directions until she could no longer move.

Gleipnir: Six Fetters of Fenrir. A seal of bondage that did not do such things as grow stronger the more divine its target was or increase its strength the harder the target tried to escape, but rather, one which sealed a portion of its target's power, preventing them from escaping. In the Norse myths, it was used, as the name suggested, to bind the great beast, Fenrir, until the end of the world, Ragnarök.

This was not those chains. This was simply a spell that borrowed the concept of Gleipnir, a spell which was built upon the _idea_ of it. It would not be as powerful or as complete as the original, but it should do the job just fine.

Noelle struggled, screaming, shouting. "You bitch!" she yelled at me. The myriad of mutated limbs lashed at her bonds, trying to sever them. They pulled, flexed, trying to tear them. The glowing ribbons strained.

But they didn't break.

How long would they hold? I didn't know. I hadn't been concerned about the spell's longevity when I cast it. I didn't need it to last a thousand years, I just needed it to last long enough.

Quickly, while she struggled, I knelt down and drew more symbols into the gravel.

"Suidigidir."

The runic pattern etched beneath my palm _burned_ , and my curse took hold.

The idea had actually come to me based upon something out of the Ulster myths. As the legend had it, all the men born of Ulster had been cursed to suffer the pains of a woman's labor during their time of greatest need, and Cúchulainn, who wasn't an Ulsterman by birth, had been the only one unaffected. He'd held off an invading army singlehandedly for months.

The curse that had been cast on Ulster was _Ces Noínden_ , which Macha had cast after she'd been humiliated by being forced to run a footrace while pregnant. However, not only was I — was _Aífe_ — not a goddess, it was also not what I needed. Debilitating pain wasn't the point and wouldn't solve anything.

No, what I needed was a curse that could force Noelle to expel the people she'd absorbed, something that would induce vomiting in an ordinary human. Enter _Ces Grán Brén_ , the Debility of Rotten Grain, a curse that made someone violently ill, as though they had ingested oats or wheat that had rotted — hence the name.

In other words, I had just given Noelle the world's worst case of food poisoning.

Even then, I'd held back a little. I hadn't put as much power behind it as I could have, because I wasn't sure how it might affect the people inside her. "Puking your guts out" was even _less_ fun when you were _literally_ puking out your guts, so I hadn't wanted to risk her victims suffering even _more_.

And beyond that, I didn't know if it would even _work_. It was a curse meant for humans, and at this point, I wasn't sure how Noelle's lower body might change that.

But, in spite of my worries, before my very eyes, Noelle's lower body started to writhe and bulge, even as the girl situated atop the mass bent over, pawing at her stomach as much as she was able and groaning miserably. The tentacles and monster heads wriggled and waved, and the flesh itself seemed to heave as it fought the nausea.

Then, looking as though it was fighting with every bit of whatever will it might have the entire way, it contorted, and from the mouth of one of the monstrous heads, excreted a body, a man clothed in rags and castaways, and the sludge-like bile that counted as blood. I waited a few breathless moments, hoping, praying, as a balloon seemed to swell inside my chest, and the body moaned and turned over on the ground.

It worked.

 _Yes!_

And even as I celebrated, the mass contorted again and slowly spat out another body and more bile. It was another homeless person, a woman, this time, who flopped on the ground next to the first man, groaning just as pitifully.

I took several steps back, preparing Medea. I needed to be ready, both to fix Noelle and in case any of the people she spat out were injured from the fighting.

"Release!"

In an instant, I was back into my Breaker form, and I was hit, suddenly, with fatigue. I stumbled on nothing, feeling like I'd just done my morning run — three times. Every part of me wanted nothing but sleep.

It wasn't as bad as that first night, at least, where I'd collapsed into Armsmaster's arms. I was tired, I ached with the exhaustion, but I was still standing and I had enough energy left, I thought, that I could handle Medea and fixing Noelle.

That was when something went wrong.

With a thundering _CRACK_ , she disappeared from Gleipnir, and a railcar took her place. Instantly, she was to my right and completely free, and she was barreling straight for me, again.

I scrambled back, my thoughts awhirl and disorganized, trying to reach for the first hero I could think of but no one was coming to mind —

And a blast of dazzling light streaked overhead and _slammed_ into Noelle like a freight train.

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

 **Okay, so it's not quite as action-packed as the fight against Lung was. I don't think we'll get something like that, that takes over the arc and lasts several chapters with Taylor at the center of the action, until Leviathan. But hopefully it helped scratch a little of that itch.**

 **There were a couple of things I had to kind of eyeball, here. Gleipnir, for example. It's shown up all of maybe two times in Nasu, once as a spell used in Prisma that does basically what it did here, and once as Fenrir's _actual_ chains. Since in the second case, Fenrir gets more powerful the more of the chains are broken, I decided to interpret the restraints as "seals" that block access to a portion of the target's powers - a rank-down of all abilities, in other words - with a side of "being really difficult to break." It was tempting to have Noelle just bust out of them, but aside breaking through that vault door, she...doesn't really have many feats for her physical abilities. She's got CON out the wazoo, a pretty high STR stat, and like Herc, surprisingly good AGI for her size. But I don't know if I could actually put a ranking on them.**

 **I might go back and edit it so that she _does_ just bust out of them. But I'd like to hear your thoughts, first. Do you think Noelle has high enough STR to match Herc's feat of breaking Gleipnir outright?**

 **In any case, now that we're getting to the meat of this arc, I hope you're finding things more enjoyable. If you want to support me as a writer so I can pay my bills, I hav treon (p a treon . com (slash) James_D_Fawkes), and if P a treon is too long term, you could buy me a ko-fi (ko-fi . com (slash) jamesdfawkes).**

 **As always, read, review, and enjoy.**


	53. Tyranny 6-7

**Tyranny 6.7**

Noelle screeched as the blast drove her back and into the gravel, carrying her five, ten, fifteen feet, as though she had been strapped to a rocket and let fly. The bulging mass of flesh undulated, rippling like the surface of a pond under the power of the blast, and then, at last, it guttered and died.

Sitting on the ground, sprawled out as though I'd tripped and fell, my heart skipped a beat and hope kindled inside my chest.

A blast of light, hitting hard enough to drive Noelle back. That had to have come from Laserdream or Lady Photon, and that meant that New Wave was okay and Brandish must have been fine, now, or at least stable enough that they could come help me.

And even amongst all of the mistakes I'd made tonight, at least it hadn't gotten any of them killed.

But when I turned to look over my shoulder at my savior, expecting to see a woman aglow with her powers, the image of a wrathful, avenging angel, my brain skidded to a halt.

 _No way_.

"Legend," I breathed, because there was no mistaking that distinctive costume, that heroic blue with streaks of white lightning and flames. There was no mistaking the lantern jaw and the lean, muscular physique. There was no mistaking the perfectly styled, wavy brown hair, and most certainly, there was no mistaking the way it all pulled together to make for the most photogenic hero in the country.

Above all else, there was no mistaking the _weight_ that was carried with him. The aura of power and authority, the confidence with which he held himself. Even just seeing him on tv, it had been as clear as it was now that he was in front of me.

And he hadn't come alone. Flanking him, floating at either side and slightly behind, were Alexandria, with the brilliant symbol of a shining tower emblazoned across her chest, and Eidolon, whose mask glowed with green light from under his hood.

The Triumvirate, the three most powerful heroes in the whole country. The three people I'd once told Armsmaster I may be able to match. Among them, the man whose vast and awesome powers I'd once compared my own powers to.

I felt small, looking up at them. Like there was a line, a road I needed to travel, and they stood far away at the end of it. Like I still had a long way to go before I could legitimately be able to claim I was on that level.

What a fool I'd been, to think I was their equal.

Noelle let loose a furious howl, and my head swiveled back around in time to watch her right herself and start to charge, again.

But a glittering wall made of what looked like frosted glass sprang up between us, and she slammed into it instead of me, bouncing off the surface without leaving so much as a scratch behind. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Eidolon float forward, hand outstretched, and it became obvious where the wall had come from.

"I'll handle this," he declared confidently. Every part of him spoke of surety. In his stance, in his posture, there wasn't even the slightest hint of a doubt.

Three major powers, I remembered, although I wasn't sure where from. Three major powers, or else a collection of smaller powers about twice as large. Those were his only apparent limitations. How he selected what powers he needed, whether those powers had any limitations (and they probably did), I didn't know. To the best of my knowledge, when it came to sheer breadth, there weren't any limitations at all.

A wave of his hand dispelled the barrier, and it fractured into thousands of tiny motes of light that glittered, then disappeared.

Noelle snarled and righted herself again, but Eidolon just held out his hand and took aim. The air grew thick and heavy, even all the way from over here, and a blast of _something_ — air pressure, maybe, or even _gravity_ — blew her back again, carrying her further away and towards the edge of the arena. The mass of mottled flesh rippled, but she seemed otherwise unharmed.

A part of me was relieved. Whatever he'd hit her with, he hadn't done any serious damage, so wherever my friends were inside of that mess, whatever it was that was happening to them in there, he hadn't hurt them.

But the rest of me worried. I had hit her hard, with several A-rank attacks, using Atalanta's arrows. I'd carved away large portions of flesh — only surface wounds, yes, but only because there was enough there that she wasn't completely obliterated with a single hit — severed limbs and gouged away enough meat for an entire family of cattle, and now, only minutes later, it had all already grown back.

High speed regeneration. It was healing that outpaced even _Lung_ , that had restored lost tissue at breakneck speeds. The kind of power that made it difficult to knock them out of the fight, because broken limbs didn't slow them down and things like poison were metabolized in moments. For sheer speed, it might even rival King Arthur's sheath.

If it came down to it and they had to carve away at her until they reached the people she was holding hostage… Could they even manage it, before her body sealed closed around the wound? How far would they have to ramp up their attacks to get deep enough? How much risk would they have to put those people — have to put my _friends_ — in just to try and get them out?

Rescuing them, bringing them back in one piece, that was the whole _point_. Doing it without killing Noelle, either… I, at least, wanted that. Wanted to cling to the belief that no one had to die, here. Because if it had just been about turning her into a smear on the pavement or ash in the wind, I had any one of countless heroes who could've already done it.

"Hey."

A hand landed on my shoulder, and I jolted, spinning, halfway through an awkwardly aimed punch before I realized I recognized the voice and the costume of the person behind me. He backed away, just far enough to get out of range of my fist, hands held up in the universal sign of surrender. A white body glove, armor panels, clock faces on the knees and chest and the mask.

"Don't shoot?" he offered, half-joking.

 _Dennis_.

"Clockblocker," I said instead, breathing his name like a sigh.

"The one and only," he replied, "at your service."

He stepped forward again and held out his hand. "You okay?"

I reached out and took it, let him pull me to my feet.

"Fine," I told him. "Just…a little winded."

I glanced over my shoulder at the fight, at the Triumvirate battling Noelle. Up in the air, Eidolon and Legend continued to blast her, hitting her with beams of light or bursts of pressure, driving her back over and over again, as they flitted out of range of her tentacles and assorted limbs. She moved nearly as fast over the ground, dodging some of their attacks, but getting hit by them far more commonly, to almost no effect. Alexandria seemed to be watching them, hanging back, hovering there, as though waiting for a moment she might be needed.

They weren't doing anything to her, really. Legend was shooting her with lasers that did all sorts of strange and exotic things, like freezing her or setting her on fire or disintegrating swathes of meat, and they curved impossibly in the air to hit, even when she tried to avoid, or forked and split to hit multiple parts at once. Eidolon's blasts were still shearing off chunks of flesh, ripping it away, but it was all only surface damage, and it healed again even as I watched.

I didn't know what they were going to do. How they were going to try and free the people she'd absorbed. Without any of my heroes to provide advice, I was hardly a master tactician, but even I could see this wasn't working.

My head swiveled back around, and looking now, behind Clockblocker, there were misshapen blobs of greyish goop, all hardened and firm. Containment foam, I realized after a second's thought. Just like the stuff they'd used to trap Lung that first night, when I'd met Armsmaster and Miss Militia.

The clones. That was how they were capturing the clones. What they intended to do afterwards… I had no idea. I didn't know what they _could_ do. Did the clones have rights? Would they be treated like real people? Or would they be summarily executed, like mad dogs? Did they deserve to be? I didn't know.

I had no illusions that New Wave had probably killed Claire and Amelia, Amy's clones.

"Is this it?" I asked, gesturing behind me with a sweeping motion. "Our reinforcements?"

It sounded ridiculous, once it came out of my mouth. The Triumvirate were the three most powerful heroes in the entire country. They were the people you called when the enemy was someone no one else could handle, and even then, even the direst of situations would only ever need _one_ of them. They should be reinforcements enough on their own.

And yet, they seemed impotent, fighting Noelle. Like she was too much, even for the vaunted Triumvirate. Like even they weren't enough to defeat her.

 _A nascent Endbringer_ , Lisa had said the Travelers thought she was. I was beginning to see why. I was beginning to think it might have been _true_.

Clockblocker shook his head. "They're the _distraction_."

Which meant they were holding back, weren't going for killing blows. A little of the tension inside of me unwound. Okay. That… That was good. Better, at least, than the idea that the strongest heroes in the country would struggle against Noelle.

He lifted his hand up to the side of his mask, pressed his fingers against the spot over his ear.

"Hey, Big V," he said. "Think you could make us a shortcut?"

For a few seconds that seemed to stretch out into forever, nothing happened. There was no answer, not even the faint crackle of a voice through his earpiece. Then, suddenly, the line of foam statues spread out, and a clear pathway pushed the world outside it away and I was looking straight into a makeshift command station, where a large group of various capes were huddled around each other.

And standing at the front was a familiar twelve-year-old girl, dressed in her costume, looking none the worse for wear after the trauma that had taken her arm only a few short days ago.

Clockblocker took my hand and led me through the distorted space until we were standing to the side of Vista, and she let out a big sigh as the twisted section snapped back to its natural shape, and suddenly, all that was behind me was an empty railcar.

"Where…?"

"An outer section of the Trainyard, not far from the fight," rumbled Armsmaster, who stood at the center of the group. "This is where we've been planning our engagement against the parahuman codenamed Echidna."

He nodded towards me respectfully. "Apocrypha."

I frowned. "Echidna?"

"There's no known record of that cape, neither of her powers nor any alias she may have chosen," Miss Militia explained. "Hence, the PRT and Protectorate chose one befitting her powers and physical appearance."

Something inside me resonated. Yes. That _would_ be what they called her, wouldn't it? Echidna, the mother of monsters, who spawned them from her flesh. How dehumanizing.

"New Wave has already briefed the Protectorate as thoroughly as they were able on the subject of Echidna's powers," said a new voice, and I almost jumped as my heart skittered in my chest. When I turned back to look, Alexandria herself floated down out of the sky to land only a few feet to my left. "However, if you have any new or updated information, now would be the time to share it."

"New Wave?" My brain sputtered for a moment, then hopeful anxiety flickered in my chest. "Wait, how's Brandish? When I left —"

"Dead," was the one word she offered. My stomach dropped to my feet.

No. No, it couldn't be. She was fine, she _had_ to be fine. Lady Photon had said —

But when I turned to Armsmaster and Miss Militia, the former's face was grim and the latter only gave me a sorry little shake of her head.

I could have saved her. If I'd just stayed behind a few moments longer, if I'd just insisted on it, I could have _saved_ her, healed her, and she would still be…

It was my fault. Brandish was dead because of me. Because of _me_. Because _I_ had been too afraid to do what needed to be done when it had mattered most. If it hadn't been for me, if I hadn't screwed things up so badly, she would never have been hurt, and this entire thing could have been avoided. If I hadn't been such a fucking _coward_ —

"Apocrypha." Alexandria's voice snapped me from my thoughts. "Do you have any new or updated information about Echidna or her powers?"

"N-no." I took a breath, steeled my nerves. Melt down later, I told myself. Amy and Lisa. Save _them_ , now, or else it would all be meaningless. "No. Nothing new about her powers. She still has Amy and… She still has Panacea, and she's absorbed a few civilians from around the Trainyard. They're all inside her, somewhere."

Damn it. Damn it. I'd gotten Brandish —

No. _No_. I had to keep it together. I couldn't afford to fall apart, here.

Alexandria nodded.

"I see. Is there any other information we need to know?"

Trickster.

"She…has a teleporter," I replied after a moment. "I…don't know his range or his limits. He can swap two objects. That's all I know."

"I see. Thank you." She turned towards the assembled heroes. "Then, this will be our engagement procedure. Priority one will be the recovery of any captured hostages or victims, including civilians and Panacea. If you encounter one and you're not sure if he or she is a clone, use one of the containment foam grenades to immobilize them and they'll be sorted out when this is all over. Priority two is the detention and neutralizing of parahuman codename Echidna. Whatever happens, we _must_ contain her and this incident and prevent her escaping to wreak havoc throughout the city or elsewhere."

There were several nods throughout the group.

"Make no mistake, this _is_ an S-Class situation," she went on. "The danger Echidna represents is no less real than Leviathan or Behemoth, in spite of our lower numbers. I expect each of you to treat this with the severity it warrants."

She waited a moment, sweeping her gaze across them all, but no one spoke up, either to question her or contradict her.

Now that I looked closer, it _did_ look like a small group. Maybe three dozen capes, only some of whom I recognized, and an almost startling number of them were Wards. Most of them were even Brockton Bay natives, like Armsmaster, Miss Militia, Dauntless, Velocity, Assault and Battery, Triumph, plus Kid Win and I think Aegis and Gallant. Grace and Tecton from the Chicago Wards, Revel, along with a few I was unsure of. No Myrddin, who was conspicuous in his absence.

The rest, I didn't know. Some of them tingled faintly at the back of my head, like a memory that dangled just out of conscious reach, a name I knew but couldn't remember, and some were complete blanks.

"Good," said Alexandria. "No official assessment has been made, yet, but based upon current information, Echidna is classed as a Master-Striker-Trump-Brute. She requires physical contact, but if she has it, it is likely that you will find yourself unable to use your powers and she will consume you. Once you are inside her lower body, she is capable of making duplicates, each possessing all of your knowledge and memories, along with some variation of your own powers. As far as is known, these duplicates are also beholden to her and possess personalities vastly different from the original."

Some of the capes shifted uncomfortably. A part of me wondered how much each of them had heard from New Wave, if they knew what "vastly different" really meant. If they understood that these clones would not be nearly perfect replicas, but distorted reflections from cracked mirrors.

"This means that you are _not_ to enter melee range unless your power has some sort of power immunity or invulnerability aspect," she went on. "If you're not perfectly confident in it, you _will_ not get within arm's reach of her. Those with such range-based limitations will instead be filling support roles and engaging any clones she might send against us. Blasters and those whose powers are not melee-based will be the main attack force and will engage her at a safe distance. At no point should _any_ of you put yourselves in unnecessary risk, because all you will accomplish is to make everyone else's job harder when we are forced to rescue _you_ , too."

I swallowed, but the words, in spite of the severe, no nonsense way she delivered them, filled me with a bit of hope. "Rescue you, too," she'd said. They reiterated the promise that getting Amy and Lisa and all of the other victims out of Noelle's grasp was part of the plan.

"Be on constant lookout for their teleporter. If you see him, you are to neutralize him as best as you are able, or else notify someone capable of doing so. However, unless and until he engages you, he is a tertiary objective, and we will not be actively seeking him out."

If they even saw him in the first place. The only time I'd seen him tonight was in the first confrontation, outside of Coil's base. Everything else, he'd done from out of sight.

"Are there any questions?"

She swept her gaze around the group again, small though it was. No one spoke up, and she nodded again.

"Good. Then we'll split up into two groups, here. Blasters and long range fighters, you will be working under Miss Militia. She is your team leader, and you _will_ follow her orders. Those of you who will be handling clones directly, Armsmaster is your team leader. Unless the situation changes, his is the first, last, and only word you will respect. Understood?"

A grim chorus of, "Yes, ma'am," answered her.

"Move out."

The heroes gathered split off, flowing together into two separate groups, and then made their way around me and back towards the fight. Clockblocker, still at my side, lingered for a moment, and I met his eyes — or the part of his mask where his eyes would be — before he gave my hand a comforting squeeze and took off at a jog to join Armsmaster's team.

I hesitated for a few seconds longer, not entirely sure which team I should be joining. At this point…it was _probably_ a good idea to Install Medea, use her magic to support the rescue teams, and then wait until everyone was free before fixing Noelle. That felt like it was the safest bet.

I _could_ heal her now, but I still wasn't sure what would happen to all that excess mass, and if her power was the only thing keeping it from crushing and suffocating the people inside…

No, absolutely, I didn't want to take that risk unless and until there was no other choice. Anything that was so uncertain as to carry the possibility of endangering my friends should definitely be left for the last resort.

I still hesitated, though, because —

A hand on my shoulder jerked me out of my thoughts. "Apocrypha."

I blinked, and a flock of butterflies suddenly started buzzing in my stomach, because _holy shit_ , _Alexandria was talking to me_.

My mouth flopped wordlessly for a moment, but fuck, this was _not_ the time to be getting starstruck, _get your shit together, Taylor_.

"Yes?"

It came out as more of a squeak than anything else. Fortunately, she didn't comment on it.

"Are you able to keep fighting? Can you keep using your powers?"

And without even trying, she hit on the exact problem I'd been thinking about.

I wasn't sure what, exactly, would happen if and when I hit my limit. I'd come very close, that first night. I'd pushed my power to the point where I'd been utterly exhausted by the time I got home. But if I pushed it further? If I pushed until I collapsed, mid-fight? _Could_ I push it that far, or would every bit of fatigue and exhaustion be put off to the side, left to compound and pile up until I let go of the Install?

That possibility scared me, too, for a different reason. What if I pushed myself too far, to the point that my real body died while I was still transformed? Would I be stuck in that form forever, unable to release it without dying, or would I just drop dead without ever realizing I'd killed myself from the stress?

That was why I wasn't entirely sure what to do, here. If I Installed Medea and went to help, would I just collapse if I pushed myself too far, leaving my friends to suffer because I wouldn't be awake to heal them, or would I manage to save everyone at the end and then quietly die with a smile, a job well done, having made up for my fuckups tonight?

I didn't want to die, but…that wasn't exactly a bad way to go, was it?

I opened my mouth to admit that I didn't know, but something held me back. There was a…a feeling, an urge, that said not to tell her, not to _trust_ her . I didn't know where it came from, I didn't know _why_ , but that part of me, however small, was screaming to _lie, lie, lie_.

But that was fucking ridiculous. This was _Alexandria_. One of the _Triumvirate_ , the greatest heroes in the country. If I couldn't trust _her_ , then who could I?

"Only one more time," I admitted after a moment. If she'd noticed or found my hesitation suspicious, she didn't show it. "Maybe… Maybe two more, if I don't do anything strenuous with either one."

She nodded, like she wasn't particularly surprised. She had Thinker powers, I recalled suddenly, so maybe she'd already known anyway.

"And how were you planning to use that last 'charge,' so to speak?"

I chewed on my bottom lip. "Healing. Once it was over, once everyone was rescued, I was going to heal everyone who needed it. Including Noelle."

"Echidna," Alexandria corrected.

"Echidna," I agreed reluctantly.

I hated that name, I realized then. I hated how it framed this situation. How it reduced Noelle to her problem and the threat she posed. But I understood the necessity. The courtesy it provided, by separating who she was now from who she would be if everything worked out. How neatly it could cleave the difference between the rampaging monster and the desperate girl who just wanted to be back to normal.

Some part of me even hated Noelle herself, for taking my friends. Even Lisa, for killing Coil and kick-starting this mess. But the larger part hated myself, for my stupidity that let it come to this.

"And can you do anything else with this power?" she asked. "Or is it limited to healing?"

"I can fight with it," I said. "But…I mean, I've never…pushed myself until I literally couldn't go on. If I drain myself dry fighting and I don't have the strength to heal…"

She nodded. Like she was taking me seriously and not just indulging the little girl playing at hero.

"If we rescue Panacea —"

"And if Am — if Panacea needs healing, too?" I cut across her. Belatedly, I realized I'd just interrupted fucking _Alexandria_ , and my cheeks burned, but I pushed through. "If I exhaust myself and Panacea comes out of there in no shape to heal, either, then we're…we're screwed."

Her lips drew into a tight line, and the faint outlines of her eyes that I could see narrowed, but she still nodded. "A valid point," she conceded. "Do you have any other powersets that might prove useful, that would be casual enough and light enough, so to speak, that you would still be able to switch to your healing power, if needed?"

I hesitated. Barely, for less than a second, as _she_ hovered, waiting, offering her power for use, to solve this entire problem. She was the patient serenity of inevitably, the unstoppable, inexorable movement of a glacier. _You will use me_ , her presence seemed to say. _I am the one who can save them. The only one._

But I couldn't. Not her. She was the one hero I absolutely must not use. The only one whose very existence I had to deny.

"No," I lied.

"Then you have the most important job," Alexandria told me. "Unless and until we can free Panacea and confirm her good health, it will be entirely up to you to ensure that none of Echidna's victims die. That means that you will be staying out of the fight, observing at a safe distance, and waiting for the moment when you're needed. Understood?"

She hadn't told me anything that I hadn't already concluded on my own, but even so, something about it chafed. Maybe it was the fact that I was currently nearly useless otherwise, or maybe it was that she seemed to have written Noelle off as an acceptable casualty.

Whatever it was, it had my hackles raising, but I pushed it down and bit out an even, "Understood."

She gave me another nod, then held out her arm, offering her hip to me. "Grab on."

I hesitated, only for a moment, then awkwardly sidled up to her and wrapped one arm around her waist. The arm she held out came down and wound firmly, tightly, around my own midsection, her fingers almost like a steel claw against my stomach.

"Hold on."

And then, we were _flying_.

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

 **If you want to support me as a writer so I can pay my bills, I hav treon (p a treon . com (slash) James_D_Fawkes), and if P a treon is too long term, you could buy me a ko-fi (ko-fi . com (slash) jamesdfawkes).**

 **As always, read, review, and enjoy.**


	54. Tyranny 6-8

**Tyranny 6.8**

We weren't in the air for long. Twenty, maybe thirty seconds, total. She carried me up over the Trainyard, far above the scattered railcars and the gravel-covered ground, and took me back towards the fight, where Noelle and the other heroes were.

It was a massacre.

That was the only way I could think of to describe it. Towering walls made of the same frosted panes as that first barrier created a sturdier, more complete arena, penning Noelle in without leaving even the slightest of gaps for her to escape through. They shone faintly, but combined, were bright enough to cast the whole area in an eerie glow. In the air above, Legend still flitted about, peppering her with laser after laser that streaked through the air and tore into her massive flanks, carving her apart one little bit at a time.

Eidolon, by contrast, had retired to another pane of frosted light, standing atop it with his hands outstretched. He was no longer flying on his own, and he had stopped firing blasts of pressure at her.

Because he'd changed powers, I realized after a moment. He'd swapped, at some point, so he could…maybe, increase the strength of his barriers? I could only guess.

And arrayed all around the arena, standing safe behind Eidolon's barriers, were the other heroes. As I watched, Noelle turned in one direction, and behind her, the barriers lowered and the heroes now exposed launched attacks directly into her back, blasting her without pause or mercy. Streaks of light, multicolored beams spat from Tinker guns, the staccato pops of Miss Militia's power, formed into an automatic rifle. Anything and everything they could throw at her from range, they did.

Even so, they weren't doing much damage, not nearly enough to seriously threaten her, but it didn't seem to matter, because she couldn't touch them. The moment she began to turn back around, the barriers rose again and the heroes were once more protected.

It was a bit incredible, I thought as Alexandria set me down atop a railcar, sat behind one of the areas without a Blaster to harry Noelle. The way these disparate teams could come together and fight so cohesively. The way they all seemed to know what they were doing and how to compliment one another, despite the fact that most of them had probably never met each other before today.

Still —

"Is this going to be enough?"

The problem remained the same as before. They weren't doing enough damage fast enough that Noelle…that Echidna wasn't simply healing most of it before they could hit her again. Unless they were trying to —

 _Death by a thousand cuts_ , I realized suddenly. No, that made perfect sense, didn't it? Not only did No — _Echidna_ regenerate flesh at a rapid rate, they had to be careful of the people still inside her. Then, the best thing they could possibly do was whittle away at her slowly but surely, always taking off only a little bit more than she had recovered, until they found her hostages.

"It'll be enough," said Alexandria.

And just as she said it, Legend fired another disintegration laser that ate further into Noelle's body, dissolving the flesh to reveal…a head? No, that was an arm, too. Shoulders. Clothing.

One of the hostages.

"GO!" roared Armsmaster's voice.

One of the barriers that made up the defensive wall shimmered and vanished, and through the gap sprang a single cape — Grace, from the Chicago Wards — who leapt up and into the air, towards Noelle, foot first. She landed with a disgusting, obscene squelch, driving her leg into the mass of meat up to her knee, right above the hostage, and with another, equally obscene sound, the hostage's body was pushed out, along with more of that bile that replaced her lower half's blood.

Then, with an agility and motion befitting her name, Grace kicked off and landed lightly next to the hostage, before she bent down and lifted the unconscious person — not Lisa, not Amy, probably another homeless person — up onto her shoulders in a fireman's carry. She was already sprinting back towards safety as Noelle spun around and realized one of her hostages had been rescued.

"NO!" she screeched, giving chase.

But even with her incredible speed, she was too far behind. Grace made it back to her group, and the barrier sprang back up into place immediately after, leaving Noelle to slam into it impotently. It didn't even crack.

And behind her, positioned on the opposite side, one of the barriers went down again and the Blaster team there unloaded onto her again. She spun again, quickly enough to take a few hits to the front, but by the time she was in motion, the wall was back up and there was nothing she could do.

Up above, Legend fired off another laser, and more of her flesh disintegrated, like evaporating water. She screamed again.

"STOP IT!" She sounded, now, less like an intimidating monster and more like a little girl who wasn't getting her way. "STOP IT! STOP IT! STOP IT!"

Underneath her, one of the mouths on her lower body spat out another person — naked, with leathery skin, so it must have been a clone. This one looked much more like the Fingerpainter than any of the other clones, but she still had Amy's hair.

"KILL THEM!" Noelle shouted.

But the Amy clone had barely a moment to pull herself to her feet before a sizzling laser from Legend blew her head directly off of her body. The disfigured corpse collapsed back to the ground.

Something nasty and cold jolted through my stomach, squirming there, and I took a step forward. "What the hell —"

A hand on my shoulder, fingers firm like a steel vice, stopped me and pulled me back. I spun around towards the grim-faced Alexandria, who didn't seem at all surprised or upset. It just made me angrier.

"He just murdered — !"

"We have been extraordinarily fortunate," she cut me off, speaking calmly and evenly, "that the clones of Panacea that have so far been encountered possessed powers that were not only wildly divergent from the original's, but also self-contained. It was agreed upon by all the leaders here that we _cannot take the chance_ that we will continue to be so fortunate."

"But summary execution…!"

I had no illusions about the likely fates of Amelia and Claire. Even the Fingerpainter…she might just have committed the cape equivalent of suicide by cop. There was a very stark and important difference, however, between killing the enemy in a fight to the death and casually blowing someone's head off before they had even had a chance to _speak_.

"And if that clone had had exactly the same powers as Panacea, only with the range of a Shaker?" retorted Alexandria, still so _damnably_ calm. "If she had used them to strike down everyone here with late stage cancer, or make all our bones so brittle they collapse under our weight? Would the lives and health of all of these brave heroes be worth it, in order to sate your conscience?"

No.

I bit my tongue against what I wanted to say and gritted my teeth, because she was _right_. Maybe there was a way to hold that Amy clone, maybe there was something someone here could have done to figure out a way to stop her if she tried to do something like that, but one life wasn't worth everyone else here that she could have killed if she put her mind to it.

It felt like it _should_ be. I'd been fighting those sorts of compromises for four months, now, because they led down the path I hated. The road to hell.

But she was right, in that as much as I hated it, I had to admit that by the time we would've found out whether or not that Amy clone could've done anything like that, it would've been far too late to fix it or stop her.

Fists clenching impotently, I turned back around to the fight, watched as the heroes carved out more flesh little by little. Hated that there really wasn't anything I could do about it, without using _her_. Hated that the only thing I could do was stand there and wait.

"STOP IT!" Noelle screamed. Her lower half thrashed while her human body squeezed her eyes shut and threw her arms around. "KROUSE! KROUSE, WHERE ARE YOU? THAT STUPID BITCH WAS WRONG! WHY AREN'T YOU HELPING ME?"

For a long moment, there was no answer, and even the heroes paused and looked around, as though expecting someone to pop out of the woodwork and come to Noelle's aid.

My lips pulled tight.

That wasn't how Trickster worked, though. His power wasn't built for head-on fights, it was built for subterfuge and sowing confusion. That was why I looked down and around the arena for anything he could use to switch out with Noelle. Anything that was big enough, massive enough, that he could swap it for her.

The problem was, there was too much. I didn't know his limits, except that there was probably a limit on the difference in masses, and even if there wasn't a way around that limit (and there probably was, since he'd swapped a Lisa clone for Noelle in the first place), there were way too many things he could use.

In that regard, picking the Trainyard, with all of these railcars, as a battleground was a huge tactical advantage.

"KROUSE!" Noelle screamed again.

 _CRACK_

But the sound didn't come from the Trainyard, it came from _above_ it, and when I looked up, Legend had been replaced by —

 _A dragon?_

It was twice the size of a man, with large, bat-like wings, flapping vigorously to hold it aloft, that accounted for maybe half of its mass, a long, lizard-like body that stretched maybe nine feet from snout to the tip of its tail, and sleek, black scales that made it seem to almost disappear against the night sky.

"SHOOT IT DOWN!" shouted Armsmaster's voice.

The dragon let out a roar and swooped down and into the arena, leaving the spray of quick, poorly aimed shots to soar through the air where it had been a moment ago. It didn't go on the attack, as I expected it to, as the gargoyle had before. Instead, it landed on all fours in front of Noelle, just barely out of her reach, reared up and wings flared out, as though it could protect her from whatever the Blaster teams tried to —

No. A nasty sense of foreboding curled in my stomach. No, that wasn't what it was doing at all.

"KILL IT!" I yelled down at the nearest team. They jumped and looked up at me, startled. _Idiots_. "KILL IT, NOW, BEFORE —"

 _CRACK_

Suddenly, in the space between one blink and the next, the dragon and Miss Militia swapped places.

"NO!"

I rushed forward, even as the dragon bowled over the other members of the team and took off into the air, again, but Eidolon's barrier stood in my way, and I couldn't do anything except watch as Noelle leapt forward like a lioness onto a gazelle and sucked Miss Militia into her body.

I pounded my fist against the pane of frosted light. It didn't so much as crack.

"Damn it!"

Lisa, Amy, Miss Militia… Was she going to take every person who had ever shown me any kindness, just to twist the knife as deep as she could?

"You see?" whispered Lisa's voice in my ear. I flinched back, gritting my teeth. "You can stop this. You _know_ you can. But you're so damn scared of it that you _won't_ , leaving everyone around you to suffer the consequences of your _cowardice_. And _this_ is the girl who beat Lung and called herself one of the strongest heroes in the world? It'd be funny if it wasn't so _pathetic_."

 _SHUT UP!_ I wanted to scream.

The only thing that stopped me was the knowledge that _I_ was the only one who could hear her. It took an enormous effort of self-control, but I couldn't afford to be benched if the other heroes thought I was losing it and talking to people who weren't there. Worse still if they enacted whatever counted for Master-Stranger protocols here and took me out of the fight for that reason, instead.

No, I had to be here. I _had_ to be here, to make sure that my friends made it out of this. That was what held my tongue.

The dragon, by this point, had made its way back to Noelle's side, standing protectively in front of her again. Not without injury — it was pockmarked with charred burn spots and gashes that bled a kind of black ichor instead of blood — but intact enough that it didn't seem overly concerned with its wounds.

Of course not. It was a projection. It could and would fight until something disrupted its form enough to destroy it. Even then, with how lifelike this one was, it might take a decisive fatal blow.

And I could do nothing, because even if I tried, Alexandria would likely hold me back so I could play healer when all was said and done.

Damn it. _Damn it_.

I just had to _sit_ here, helplessly, waiting for these heroes to try and rescue my friends, hoping that they didn't hurt Amy or Lisa and that no one else had to die because of my mistakes. I had to sit here and pray to whatever heartless god might be listening that all of these heroes could thread that needle against a nascent Endbringer and a menagerie of monsters that could take on any form they liked, with who even knew what kind of limits.

Even as I watched, the dragon's wounds were starting to slow and heal, closing before my very eyes, just…like…

Lung.

 _No_.

Something cold jolted through the anger and the frustration, and I pressed myself up against the pane to try and get a better look. Up above, Legend reappeared in a flash of light and let off another sizzling laser, the same kind that had eaten so effortlessly through Noelle's flesh, before.

But the dragon turned its wings into a shield, blocking the shot, and that powerful beam seemed only to take away the outermost layer, dissolving away the hard scales to reveal raw flesh underneath.

It was not a killshot, even though it should have been, even though it _had_ been on that clone, even though a single arrow to the head from Atalanta had killed that gargoyle. The dragon had survived, almost unharmed, and even now, the wound was slowly healing.

I remembered, then, the utter certainty I'd had that first night, as I used Siegfried. That as Lung became more and more dragon-like in shape and form, he would suffer too a dragon's weakness to Balmung. But the flipside of that was that he would also gain a dragon's _strength_ ; its tough, scaly hide, its immense strength and power, its robust fortitude and constitution. How much of that had been his power, and how much he had gained from borrowing the image, the concept of a dragon, if any at all, I didn't know.

Was I witnessing it here, now? Was this monster, a projection in the shape of a dragon, also borrowing the power of one?

Legend tried again and again and again, blasting the dragon with a variety of different lasers, but though one pierced the scales and scored a deep, penetrating wound, the one that set things on fire flickered against them impotently, and the one that froze things only left a thin layer of frost where it hit that cracked and shattered and fell away when the dragon moved.

And the other heroes watched, uneasy, as though wishing to fight but unable, because Noelle stood free and able and the tactic they were using before didn't work the same when she faced one direction and the dragon faced the other.

Eidolon didn't seem willing to take any chances with it, either. The pen he created had been left completely up and closed, and he hadn't opened a spot for the capes arrayed around it to fire into, again. Not since Miss Militia had been taken.

I glanced at Alexandria.

And if I tried to do anything, she'd stop me. My own personal minder, who was staying out of the fight just so she could babysit me.

A great swell of anger, frustration, and disgust surged suddenly through my belly and exploded in my chest. In that instant, I hated her, hated everything she represented, hated that I had ever looked up to her as a child, and even as I hated her, I wasn't entirely sure _why_.

Fuck her. _Fuck her_. If she thought I was just going to sit here and _watch_ …

"Hey!" I called over to the nearest cape, a boy about my age with streaks of white set into his dark costume.

He startled and looked over to me. Raymancer, that was his name. One of the ones I hadn't recognized earlier.

"Gimme something!"

"Like what?" he asked back incredulously.

"Anything!" I snapped. "A rock, a piece of gravel — I'm not being picky!"

He hesitated for a second, and the other capes around us kept glancing over, like they were trying to keep an eye on both what was happening here and Noelle at the same time, but eventually, he bent down and rummaged about on the ground for the largest piece of gravel he could find. After a moment, he straightened and tossed it towards me.

"Here!"

I snatched it out of the air effortlessly and turned away from him without bothering to thank him.

Alexandria was already there, ready to block my way.

"Apocrypha," she said, voice firm and brooking no argument, "you're not going in there."

"I'm not," I agreed coldly, and that seemed almost to surprise her.

I didn't offer her anything else, I just made my way to the back ledge of the railcar, to give myself enough space, then I took off like a shot from a cannon and pushed off with all my strength.

I'm not sure what it said, about her or about the situation, that Alexandria didn't try to stop me, because I knew for a fact she was fast enough that she could have.

I leapt up, high into the air and above the tops of the barrier, so high up that I could look down and see the entire arena. As I reached the apex of my jump, time seemed to stretch outwards to infinity and I hung there for what felt like an eternity, pulling my arm back in slow motion, condensing my strength into a single point, focusing the power needed, taking aim.

Then, I whipped my arm forward and let it all go through the pebble in my hand.

 _Thunder Feat_.

"HA!"

 _CRACK_

The pebble, propelled forward with a technique that had been used to slay men, monsters, and gods alike, grew red hot as it shattered the sound barrier. It flew like a bullet, moving so quickly that only maybe the Triumvirate was fast enough to see it, and it collided with the dragon's head like a battering ram.

It was obliterated. Both the rock itself and the head of the beast, the impact destroyed them utterly, and everything above the dragon's neck simply ceased to exist. Like someone had taken an eraser and just removed them from reality. A handful of seconds later, both the dragon itself and the brackish ichor that had splattered over the gravel vanished, too, just like the gargoyle before them.

The recoil of my technique pushed me back, and I landed, with a nimbleness that surprised even me, back behind the frosted pane of Eidolon's barrier.

In the aftermath, there was a long moment of silence, like the entire battlefield had been surprised by what I'd done. Some of the heroes were looking at me, as though they hadn't realized I could do something like that or be so lethal. Mostly, it was the Wards, more than the Protectorate.

This was no time to be gawking, though.

"WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?" I shouted at the Blaster teams. At Eidolon, who needed to let them in to fight. "GO! NOW! GET —"

But it was too late. Noelle had had enough time to finish the gestation, and from the mouth of one of the monstrous heads sticking out of her lower half, there came a great spray of bile and a single body that flopped onto the gravel limply.

A clone.

The clone was naked, as they always were, but looked mostly human. There were rough spots, places where her flesh got tough and leathery that corresponded to the real one's fatigues, but it was the face where she got most inhuman, where her nose and mouth had stretched out into broad triangle that merged smoothly with her cheeks and chin, ending in a limp flap that hung over the front of her neck — as though she was wearing a scarf or a bandanna.

Legend was already lining up another killshot, just as he had with the Amy clone, but Noelle put her bulk in between him and the clone and took the laser with little more than a grunt as her flesh burned and more of that bile spilled out onto the gravel.

For a fraction of a second, a moment so brief, a delay so short, that I myself only barely saw it, Legend hesitated, then he swooped around to take aim from another angle — but it didn't matter, because that fractional hesitation was enough for the Miss Militia clone to be swapped out.

Instantly, she and a figure in Spartan-like armor — Dauntless — switched places, leaving Dauntless to be swallowed by Noelle and the Miss Militia clone to strike with snake-like speed at the heroes he'd been grouped with.

But it was not an attack, like I'd been expecting. No slap. No punch. No power lashing out at them violently, horrifically. It was almost gentle, the way she pressed her swollen, misshapen fingertips against the parts of their faces left open by their masks. Almost affectionate, the way the gnarled pads ghosted over their cheeks.

The pair of them — Revel and a man I didn't recognize — flinched back from her, and the two groups nearest turned as though to fight, but she was already gone, swapped out for Armsmaster, then gone again before his team could rally against her, then again, replaced with Gallant, and again, and again.

I moved to help, more on instinct than because I thought I could do anything as I was, but Alexandria's hand took my shoulder and held me back. I spun to face her, and her mouth was pulled into a thin line.

"Wait," she ordered. "Look."

I turned back around to see Revel fumbling with her lantern, handling it as though she suddenly had no idea how to use it, while the man beside her flinched away from everything, like he was afraid of being hurt by anything he touched.

Or destroying whatever he came into contact with.

I realized what she wanted me to see just as she spoke into the microphone in her helmet.

"All teams, be advised," she said, even as more of them were moved around, "the clone, dubbed Reversal, is a Striker-Trump with the ability to swap the powers of any two capes she touches. Engage at range, or else retreat —"

But it was already too late. The cape beside Revel disappeared, and the clone, Reversal, was suddenly standing next to Armsmaster, already in motion.

Then, Revel traded places with Eidolon, and Eidolon was right in front of Reversal, within striking distance, and she reached out, viper quick, pressing her fingers along Armsmaster's jaw and reaching back into Eidolon's hood —

The barrier wall flickered, then died. The faint glow it provided, illuminating the battlefield, disappeared, plunging everything into darkness. Beneath the distant light of the glimmering stars, a menacing, monstrous figure stood, unfettered, a vague outline against the blackness of the night.

Noelle was free.

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

 **If you want to support me as a writer so I can pay my bills, I hav treon (p a treon . com (slash) James_D_Fawkes), and if P a treon is too long term, you could buy me a ko-fi (ko-fi . com (slash) jamesdfawkes).**

 **As always, read, review, and enjoy.**


	55. Tyranny 6-9

**Tyranny 6.9**

I was moving before I could consider whether it was even a good idea or not.

"Install!" I shouted, more as a war cry than anything else.

"Apocrypha!" Alexandria called, trying to stop me.

But I ignored her, and her hand that had been sufficient to hold me back before slipped on the silky fabric of my cloak as I took on Medea's form, leaving her to grasp at only air as I shrunk, compacting down into a shorter, curvier body.

Fuck her. Fuck her and her plan of me sitting back to wait and heal. If she thought I was just going to stand by while this whole thing went to _shit_ , she had another thing coming.

Medea was not the fastest of heroes around, and the likes of Cúchulainn would run circles around her handily, but it was still enough for me to outpace Noelle and place myself between her and the heroes she'd been about to swallow up. I lifted my hand and the staff, the _wand_ , I held, and the incantation spilled forth almost before I could think of what I was doing.

"Μαρδοξ!"

The large pane of light that formed in front of me was paper thin, but at least as strong Eidolon's. No, of course, this was a mystery dating back to the time when the ancient gods still held sway, harnessing the concepts and authorities over which they'd held dominion; the idea that it would be weaker than a modern superpower was just _stupid_.

A power so young can't even compare.

Noelle, moving too fast to stop on a dime, collided head first with my barrier and bounced off, the mass of meat rippling. The pane of light didn't even shudder. She might as well have tried to sink the Titanic with a pebble.

I was already moving, already starting my next spell before she could even get her bearings.

Of course. This was why I had decided on Medea as my main caster, back then. Nimue, Nicolas, and all of the others, they certainly outdid her in their areas of specialty. No one was a better alchemist than Nicolas Flamel. No one could compete with Nimue's crafting abilities or her capacity for large scale magecraft. Each had one area in which they shone brightest.

But when it came to combat, none of them could hit as fast or as hard as Medea.

"Αερο!"

Blades of wind tore into flesh, and Noelle shrieked as they ripped up her lower half and sent that brackish bile splattering across the gravel. Severed tentacles and other random limbs went flying and flopped lifelessly to the ground.

 _Careful_ , I scolded myself. _Careful_. Amy and Lisa and a bunch of bystanders were still in there. I'd have to be incredibly cautious about what I hit Noelle with and how hard.

A laser streaked towards me, moving at speeds even _I_ could barely keep up with, then bent and curved around my body and converged to strike at something behind me. A moment later, a body thudded as it fell to the ground.

Legend. Of course. He'd killed Reversal.

That didn't matter, right now. Unpack it later, Taylor.

I turned my attention back to Noelle, just in time to get splattered with bile shot from one of the intact heads. It smelled just as bad as it had before, and it quickly began to sink into my clothes.

"Gah!"

The incantation on the tip of my tongue was lost. Noelle, perhaps thinking to seize upon my moment of distraction, suddenly raced forward, trailing ichor as half-severed limbs flailed behind her like some grotesque cape.

Oh my. That confident, are we?

I flew higher, up and out of her reach, and prepared my next spell.

"Μάχηα —"

Then had to bite my tongue as Alexandria swooped down and into the line of fire, carrying a sheet of corrugated metal — the siding of a shipping container, it looked like. She pressed it up against Noelle and pushed, using it like a plow to force her back and further away from the heroes beneath me.

You…!

I bit my lip, to stop the sudden impulse to shout at her for interfering. Instead, I picked another spell and took aim, not at Noelle, but at the corrugated sheet of metal.

 _If you're going to offer me a conductor_ …

"Κεραινο!"

The arc of electricity lanced out, striking the sheet, then arced across the metal and grounded out into and through Noelle — and, unexpectedly, Alexandria, who spasmed and let go of the sheet, twitching as she hung in midair, stunned.

What? My brain stumbled over the sight. She was supposed to be _invulnerable_ —

Noelle recovered quickly, quicker than I'd expected her to, shaking off the effects with visible effort and a furious growl, and my brain refocused as one of her tentacled limbs lashed out to grab Alexandria by the arm.

 _No. I'm not going to let my fuckups screw anyone else over, tonight_.

I pointed a single finger at the tentacle —

"Ερε Εκάτη!"

— and a beam of pink light shot out and severed it effortlessly.

I took aim now at Alexandria.

"Tροψα!"

An instant later, she was behind me, well out of Noelle's range.

I turned back to Noelle.

"Μάχηα Ἑκάτηκ Γραεα!"

Around me, spheres of pink light bloomed, and from them shot more sizzling beams, all aimed at her. She screamed as they hit, burning off flesh and searing away the meat of her lower body, carving her apart with light and heat one little bit at a time. The instant one beam finished, the sphere it had come from would fire again, and then again, striking her with rays of light that fell upon her like raindrops.

I was not hitting her as hard as I could with this. No, of course not. They would have ripped her — and everyone inside of her — to shreds at full power. Instead, I had throttled this spell so that it would only do surface damage, the way Legend had been, so that I could whittle away at the monster to the people beneath.

It was better for me, too. I could feel the vast ocean of energy available to me, to Medea, enough to sustain this bombardment at full power for decades, centuries, _millennia_. But I was also conscious of the fact that the more of that energy I used, the harder it would be on my own, real body. I needed to take care not to kill myself before I saved my friends.

Noelle, screaming under my barrage, lifted her hands to protect her human half's face and chest, and her monster half grabbed the sheet of metal with what limbs remained to hold it up like a shield, too.

It would work, for a moment, and only a moment. The constant blasts striking it would eat away at it within seconds —

Down below, from one of the heads protected by the sheet, a pair of bodies fell out, covered in rags and bile.

I stopped my attack, hesitating, and only after a second realized that they wasn't Amy or Lisa, but two of the homeless she must have absorbed while she had free reign over the Trainyard. More of her victims.

They'd barely been released before the mouth opened wider and spewed yet more bodies, all naked. It was a veritable deluge of flesh and brackish vomit, a torrent of misshapen limbs and thick, leathery skin, coated in the same thick fluid that still clung to my clothes and stung my nostrils. One, two, three… In total, fifteen landed on the gravel.

These new bodies were more clones, already climbing to their feet, and they were mostly generic, vague copies in various shapes and sizes, undoubtedly clones of the other homeless still stuck inside her, but two stood out.

The first was obviously another Miss Militia clone, and she was not as sturdy as the first had been. Paler. Sickly looking, almost, with bloodless, paper-white skin that seemed like it would tear if you touched it. Her physique was thin and bordered on emaciated, with the lean look of someone who hadn't eaten in properly in weeks. A stiff wind might have been enough to blow her over.

In contrast, the man beside her, who had to be a clone of Dauntless, was a tank. Tall, built solidly, with skin like granite and muscles that looked as though they'd been carved from marble. Bone-like protrusions jutted out and back over his elbows from his forearms like spears, pointed at the end and rounder throughout the rest. His face was grotesque, with a square, boxy nose, ridges that jutted up over his forehead from where his eyebrows should have been, and a crop of scraggly black hair that formed an uneven mohawk.

Immediately, I felt something try to take hold of me, a line that connected me to both the Dauntless clone and another person, far off into the distance. It was trying to force me through a kind of rift in space, to swap my position with the clone's, so that I could be absorbed, the way Miss Militia and Dauntless had been.

Trickster.

I took a brief second to turn narrowed eyes in the direction of origin, then reached out and took hold of him in much the way he'd been trying to take hold of me.

You're a thousand years too early to try that on me, boy.

"Tροψα."

The pressure trying to move me disappeared, and so did Trickster, teleported to the spot where the heroes had been planning this battle, only about fifteen feet in the air. The scream he let out as he landed and his leg broke was, I hated to admit, incredibly satisfying.

"KROUSE!" Noelle shouted. Her entire body vibrated with anger, every remaining head growling. "YOU BITCH!"

She charged, and in front of her, her clones charged, too, racing towards the line of heroes that stood behind and beneath me, with Noelle bringing up the rear. It was a mad dash, bereft of strategy and tactics. The flailing of a wounded beast.

Easy to deal with.

Legend was only a fraction of a moment ahead of me. Lasers lanced out from each of his fingertips, curving around and locking in on their targets. They blew smoking, smoldering holes in knees and shoulders, through feet and through hands. One, two, three clones fell down, stumbling, and were trampled underfoot by the rest. Another four were hit, staggered for a brief second, and then kept moving.

Now, it was my turn.

"Μάχηα Ἑκάτηκ Γραεα!"

Another barrage of beams rained down on them, striking heads and shoulders and sometimes missing entirely. I was not as accurate as Legend in my attack. This spell wasn't really built with tracking or homing functions in mind — or rather, it was an unnecessary effort to add that kind of aspect and a bit beside the point.

Throttled like it was before, it was still powerful enough that each beam was like having a pot of boiling water dumped on you, and the growling clones now screamed as they were blinded and burned. Those unfortunate enough to take multiple hits, especially to the face or the feet, collapsed to the ground, clutching at their wounds.

Easily healed, either by me or by Amy, once this whole thing was over.

At the back, Noelle did as I expected her to; she shrieked and doubled back, and the handful of mostly uninjured clones, maybe a third of those she'd spawned, retreated with her. I chased them back with my spell, nipping at their metaphorical — and also literal — heels.

Legend took his chance and fired off another sizzling laser, this one bigger and more powerful looking, more like the one he'd used to kill the Amy clone. It was easily big enough and powerful enough to kill any single one of the clones, and it shot off towards Noelle like a firework.

But even as the others scattered to get out of its way, the Dauntless clone stepped in front of it, planted his feet, and took it straight on.

And the laser disappeared. It splashed against him, a direct hit, and like a candle, it was snuffed out between one second and the next.

Lava-like spots danced under the clone's skin, and for the same, brief moment, his veins glowed a bright, molten orange, like hot steel. Aside the short lightshow, however, the Dauntless clone was completely unharmed.

My spell cut off and my brow furrowed.

What? He'd…absorbed it?

Alexandria flew in, now, cape whipping behind her, and she delivered an absolutely bone-shattering right hook that I felt even from where I was floating. The clone simply took it on the jaw, the same lava-like spots shining through his skin, and was utterly fine.

He was just accepting it. He wasn't trying to stop it or avoid it, he was just letting her hit him. Letting _them_ hit him. Because he was invulnerable?

Noelle reached out to try and take Alexandria, but a few lasers from Legend severed the limbs she was using and forced her off as he started harrying her, again, and Alexandria herself grabbed the clone, lifting him off of his feet and off of the ground to start delivering more punishing punches. Each one carried him higher and higher and higher, each one was powerful enough to push him further into the sky, and each one would have been absolutely devastating to a normal human being.

And the clone just kept taking them. Each spot hit had a brief moment of that same glow, but it obviously wasn't rapid healing — it was way too fast. Even Lung hadn't healed so quickly that the wound was gone before his flesh even had time to deform from the impact. It likely wasn't simple invulnerability, either, or else why the lightshow?

Having realized that it wasn't working and that it had nothing to do with planting his feet, Alexandria flew above him, thrust her fist into the small of his back, and drove him down, instead, slamming him into the ground with enough force that even the railcars rattled.

But as she backed away, eyeing him cautiously, he slowly pulled himself to his feet, none the worse for wear.

Everything she'd hit him with, even being hit with one of Legend's lasers, he'd just absorbed it. Just taken it and accepted it without…

Wait.

"Alexandria!" I shouted.

I was too late. The Dauntless clone suddenly took off like a shot from a cannon, accelerating from zero to nearly supersonic in a single second. Alexandria, surprised, didn't react quite in time, and the haymaker he threw into her face sent her flying back towards the group of heroes like a ballistic missile.

"Μαρδοξ!"

My hastily incanted spell was only barely fast enough, and another pane of light formed in her path, just in time for her to crash into it like a cannonball. The barest of cracks slithered up from the point of impact.

A testament to just how hard she'd been hit. A normal human's head would have been pulped, along with most of the upper torso.

"He gets stronger —"

"I know," she cut me off, none the worse for wear.

I clenched my teeth against a biting retort and let her float away. Unlike before, she approached the Dauntless clone cautiously, eyeing him from a distance, rather than engaging directly. She didn't want to keep making him stronger.

That was how his power must have worked, after all. All of that energy was going _somewhere_. From what I remembered, the original Dauntless could imbue his gear with "charges," making them steadily stronger day by day. There was a fairly big following online who thought he was one day going to match the Triumvirate, as long as he had enough time to build up.

His clone was similar, only much faster. Rather than having a set number of "charges" to imbue into his equipment, his body absorbed incoming attacks and redistributed the power behind them into his muscles and organs, making him stronger, faster, hardier. The harder he got hit, the faster he would grow.

As for whether he needed to be standing still or if it always worked, I had no idea. If there was an upper limit to what he could take, a cap on how strong he could get… There was no way to tell without making him even more dangerous and risking turning him into something too strong for anyone here to fight.

The Dauntless clone approached her slowly, as well, staring unblinkingly at her from under his misshapen brow. What that meant…

I considered trying to hit him with another spell, but dismissed the idea. If Legend's lasers were completely ineffective, then it was likely any of my offensive abilities would be, too. Besides —

I turned my attention further out and back to Noelle and Legend, who were still dancing around each other. The faint outlines of several clones lied, motionless, on the ground nearby.

— there were still other enemies to…

Wait.

Where was the other Miss Militia clone?

A scream rent the air, and I spun around in time to see Grace's arm sever itself from her body, just above the elbow. The missing Miss Militia clone, having apparently snuck up behind her, retreated backwards, leaving Grace to collapse to the gravel, screaming.

Battery, standing right next to Grace, whipped around and lashed out at the clone, the lines of circuits patterned across her costume glowing. The clone swayed out of the way, then whipped out her arm and delivered an open-palmed slap to Battery's cheek.

The crack as her neck snapped and her head spun nearly a hundred and eighty degrees around seemed deafening. My heart leapt into my throat.

"No!" shouted a man in red. Assault. He was already moving as Battery fell limply to the ground, like a marionette with cut strings.

A broken neck. Fatal, almost invariably. It depended on how badly the spine was damaged, but even if your heart and lungs kept working, the shock alone could kill you just as easily.

Seconds, seconds, I only had seconds. Grace would bleed out, Battery would die, I had less than a minute.

"Ερε Εκάτη!"

I shouted my spell, maybe a little louder than I needed, but that didn't matter, right then. A bright beam of pink light lashed out from my fingertip and lanced towards the clone, who dodged back and out of the way, even as the other heroes started to give her a broad birth.

"Don't move her!" someone shouted, I assumed at Assault. I couldn't take the time to look.

Another beam of precision light shot out again, and again, as I pushed the clone back and back, forcing her away from her victims. Each second felt like an eternity, and my heart thudded anxiously in my chest as the specter of doom hovered, as though waiting for me to fail and let those two heroes die.

 _Come on, come on…_

Finally, I'd made enough distance and incanted my next spell.

"Ατλας!"

And just like that, the air around her condensed and the clone froze in place. She was trapped.

Barely a second later, a laser raced past me, carved a path through the thick, soupy air, and like the Panacea clone before, blew her head right off.

I traced the line of the shot back, all the way back to Legend, who floated with his hand outstretched. He'd delivered the killshot.

And left himself open, in exchange. Behind him, Noelle was rearing up, and she leapt off the ground with speed and grace that belied her enormous mass, like some demented jumping spider that could clear a hundred times its own body length in one go. For an instant, I only watched, torn between rescuing him and saving Battery and Grace.

But there was no choice. If even _Legend_ was captured and cloned, if we had to stare across the battlefield at the twisted form of the most powerful Blaster in the world, at two or three or more of them, then it was likely we would have already lost.

"Tροψα!"

Before she could take him, he vanished and reappeared next to me, safe and free.

"Vista!" Armsmaster growled out from below me. "Clockblocker! Now!"

Noelle landed, seemed to realize that she'd missed, and looked over in our direction, and even from this distance, in the dark, I could faintly make out the rictus of fury that carved itself into her face.

"You —"

Then, space twisted, condensing the distance between us and her, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw a familiar white-costumed hero reach out through it to quickly tap her on the only part of her that it seemed didn't absorb people: her human upper half. Mid-word, she froze, suspended in time.

No, no, forget about that.

I whirled back around and swooped back to the ground, next to Battery and Grace. Some smart hero had wrapped a tourniquet around Grace's stump, while someone else held Battery's head steady to try and minimize the damage. In my peripheral vision, I saw Velocity holding back Assault, who looked as though his world was falling apart and he was teetering over the edge.

"Bring her over here," I told the person attending Grace as I set down next to Battery. My voice was calmer than I felt, just then. Raymancer, the same boy who had given me that piece of gravel. "Her arm, too."

He looked at me dubiously, then glanced around at the Protectorate heroes for guidance.

"Quickly, fool!" I snapped, patience evaporating.

I don't have the resources to manage true resurrection!

"Do it," Armsmaster rumbled.

Raymancer still seemed uncertain, but he did as ordered and helped Grace over to me. He only hesitated a moment to pick up her severed arm, which he held at a distance as though it carried some terrible disease.

"Lie her down. Set her arm in place."

I gave the orders swiftly and without fanfare, and Raymancer helped Grace lie down — far, far too slowly and gently. My fingers itched to curse him for wasting the precious little time Battery had left, but I held myself back and gritted my teeth.

At least twenty seconds had already passed, by the time Grace was finally lying down. Battery was not breathing, and her heart had likely already stopped, too, but the cutoff point for permanent brain damage was something like four minutes, if I remembered my health class right.

If she hadn't already died from the shock.

I swallowed around the lump in my throat, then knelt down and held my hands out over both wounds.

"Ἀσκληπιός Ὑγιεία Χρόνος."

It was like watching an old VHS on rewind. Different, and yet the same as the spell I'd used on Vista, the injured flesh pulled itself together, sealing closed as though it had never happened. The cut that had severed Grace's arm shrank and vanished, leaving behind only clear, unblemished skin, and the bruised, swollen flesh of Battery's neck returned to a normal, healthy size and tone as the shattered vertebrae cracked and wove back together.

And as Grace let out a surprised shriek and leapt to her feet and Battery gulped down a sudden breath, I let myself lean back on my haunches, relieved, and released the tension inside of me with a long, deep sigh.

I'd made it in time.

"Look out!"

I whirled around as the other heroes scattered, scrambling to my feet, just in time to see the Dauntless clone, who had broken away from his fight with Alexandria, racing towards me.

Fast. He was too fast. I didn't have the time or the breath to incant a spell, and without that, no way to fight him with Medea —

I pushed her out of me and away, steeling myself for a fight — and then collapsed, unable to stand, as the sudden fatigue that hit me stole the strength from my legs. The Dauntless clone continued, heedless of my exhaustion, barreling through the lasers being shot at his back as though they were nothing.

In an instant, he closed the distance and was barely five feet from me, and there was no way I was going to get back up in time, not to fight him, not when I hadn't felt this tired since that first night after using Siegfried to fight Lung.

But he jerked to a sudden halt, less than a yard from me, as Alexandria appeared behind him and locked him in a stranglehold. She squeezed down on his neck, and this close, I could see his veins popping under his skin, the lava-like spots that danced under her grip, the straining of the muscles in his neck and in his arms as he scrambled for purchase to try and pull her away.

I could hear him gasping for breath as he struggled.

However strong he'd gotten, however much power he'd gained from taking hits from her and Legend, it wasn't enough. Alexandria had him locked, with the crook of her elbow pressed against his windpipe as she used her other arm like a lever to tighten her hold.

It wasn't long before he started to weaken. His kicking legs kicked less often and with less ferocity. His tugging arms lost strength and were barely able to reach for his neck. His eyes rolled up into his head as his face turned a sickening shade of purple.

At last, he fell limp, arms and legs dangling lifelessly as his head drooped. He was utterly and completely motionless. After a few more seconds, Alexandria let him go — only long enough to reach up and twist his head around with a deafening _CRACK_.

In the background, one of the other heroes threw up noisily, and it only served to worsen the nauseous feeling churning in my own stomach.

And Alexandria just let him drop with a heavy, meaty thud to the ground.

Like it was nothing. Like she hadn't just killed a man — clone or no clone — right in front of me and every other hero here.

Then, with that same uncaringness, she turned to one of the heroes in the crowd.

"Eidolon," said Alexandria, "have you taken the necessary power?"

I startled and looked over in that direction, and there, sitting apart from everyone else in something resembling a meditative pose, was Eidolon himself.

"Yes," he answered shortly.

"Good. Then when I say so, use it. Make sure you get all of her, leave nothing behind."

Noelle. They were talking about Noelle.

My heart leapt into my throat. Nothing left behind…? If he did that, then —

I surged to my feet and barely managed to stay there without falling back over. "You can't do that!"

Alexandria turned to me, expression — what I could see of it — grim and determined. "Apocrypha. This isn't the time."

"She still has my friends!" I shouted. "Lisa and Amy! _Panacea's_ still in there! Miss Militia and Dauntless! You _can't_ just kill them, too! We have to save them!"

It was why we were here, it was what I was fighting for. If they died here, now, after all of this, then what was even the fucking _point_?

But if my words meant anything to her or not, if they were anything more to her than empty air, I couldn't tell. She was unmoved.

"It's tragic, but neither the lives of two teenage girls nor those of two heroes can be measured against the whole city, let alone the whole world," she said. "And we cannot allow Echidna to continue to rampage."

Furious anger, white hot and yet frigid cold, burned through my veins. _You callous fucking bitch —_

"I'm not going to trade my best friends' lives away just because you're not willing to find another way —"

"Do you?" she cut in, bringing me up short. "Do you have another way? If you have a better idea, I'm willing to hear it. If you have a power that can stop Echidna and save your friends, you have only to say so."

I opened my mouth, but my tongue flopped uselessly.

Of _course_ I had a hero who could do that. No, I'd had one from the beginning. Someone who could have stopped this whole thing before it even got started, back at Coil's base.

But I couldn't use her. No, _anyone_ but her. Anyone at all. She was the one hero I absolutely couldn't use, no matter what.

She took my silence for an answer.

"I see," said Alexandria. She turned away towards Eidolon. "Eidolon, are you ready?"

"Yes," he replied. "She won't be able to escape."

"Then we'll wait until she unfreezes," she said. "The moment she does, hit her with your most powerful attack."

The bottom of my stomach dropped out. They were really going to do it. They were going to kill Noelle and everyone inside of her, without a care for who that might be. Even Panacea wasn't going to get any special consideration.

"Wait," I tried again. "Please, wait. You can't. You have to find another way. They're my _friends_."

 _The only ones I've got_.

She turned to me, stoic, uncaring.

"Heroes have to make sacrifices, Apocrypha," she told me coldly. "There are always people you won't be able to save. If you don't understand that, if you can't deal with it, then you should stay back here, where you can't get in anyone's way, and let the real heroes work."

 _You're wrong_ , I wanted to shout at her. _You're wrong! Didn't you see me save Battery and Grace? Didn't you just watch me pull off the miracle you're saying is impossible, now?_

But I couldn't, because there was a woman, now a corpse, who had already died tonight, because of me. There were clones that had lost their lives because I hadn't had an answer for how to stop them, if their powers were too dangerous.

I turned to Legend, hoping against hope that he would be the voice of reason, that he would be the hero needed to speak out against this callousness and cruelty. _Surely_ , I thought, _surely, Legend will…_

But he turned from me, looking away, face twisted in shame.

Alexandria turned away, too, apparently finished with me, and Eidolon moved to take his position, too, lifting gently into the air and making his way in front of the group. All I could see was their retreating backs as they got farther away from me — out of my reach, both physically and verbally. They had already made up their minds, so nothing I said would cross that gap.

They were going to kill Noelle — kill my friends — and nothing would turn them from that course.

"No!" I screamed. "Stop! Stop!"

It fell on deaf ears. I might as well have been screaming at a brick wall.

Hovering some twenty feet above the ground, Eidolon continued to stare out at the grotesque statue of Noelle, frozen in time. The air around him, reaching even here, where I stood, filled with something heavy and oppressive. Like it was thickening and turning solid.

"Stop!"

I could make them, I knew. I could force them to stop, force Noelle to let my friends go, force this entire fight to a screeching halt. Everyone could be saved, here and now, right in front of me.

I just had to use _her_.

No, no, there had to be someone else.

Medea? I could do like I'd done to those mercenaries in Coil's base, put them all to sleep.

But no, that wouldn't work. Alexandria would probably be unaffected, Eidolon would probably have a power that stopped it, and Noelle… No, putting her to sleep was a bad idea. I didn't know how, but I knew that with utter certainty.

Aífe, Atalanta, Gawain… I wracked my brain for each and every hero I knew, each one I'd researched during those three months between learning martial arts and experimenting with the limits of magic.

None of them would work.

I couldn't bind them. Eidolon would just use a power to get them all free, and anything that held Noelle would make her an easy target for him, would leave her wide open. I'd be back where I started, with new problems.

I couldn't fight them. My heroes were incredible, but trying to fight the Triumvirate on one side and Noelle on the other, sandwiched between the two, would be a challenge for even the greatest of them — especially having to pull my punches all the while.

Couldn't fight, couldn't bind, couldn't just put them all to sleep… What could I do? What could I even do? What was left? _Who_ was left? Who could I use to save my friends without having to kill anyone? Who could save everyone here? Who could do it all without pushing me over that edge and into the abyss I knew awaited? Who? _Who_?

 _Me_.

I gasped, flinching away. The hero offering herself up said no words, but the strength of her connection gave weight to her presence. It was like a hand being held out in front of my face — she would help, she _wanted_ to help, and all I had to do was accept it.

 _No, no, anyone else, anyone,_ _ **please**_ _!_

But my power offered no one else. No one else who fit all of the criteria, who could save everyone here, who could stop everyone from fighting, who could force Noelle to let the people she'd absorbed go. No one else who wouldn't make me a murderer in the process. There was only one hero with the power to do all of that.

 _Please, no. Anyone but her._

"Eidolon!" barked Alexandria.

"Almost ready!" he answered.

"Stop," I whispered desperately. My arms wound around my chest, as though to protect me from what was happening in front of me.

 _Please. Please. Don't make me use her._

"You'll only have one shot. Make it count."

"I will."

"Stop!"

 _They're my friends. My only friends. I can't lose them. Don't make me_ —

"— bitch!"

The mass of meat unfroze. Noelle staggered, jerking, aborting whatever she'd been about to do as she realized that everyone had moved out of place and no one was where they had been before.

"Eidolon!"

 _No, no, they're my friends, but I can't use her, I can't, don't make me choose, don't make me have to choose, I can't_ —

"Now!"

I couldn't. I couldn't. But there was only one option, only one hero who could do it all. I didn't have anyone else, and if I didn't do anything, Lisa and Amy…

 _Please_ —

"STOP!"

I reached out and through myself.

And I took the hand of the hero whose power would let me save my friends.

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

 **Sorry it took so long to get these out. I _did_ kinda forget about you guys, again, but stuff got busy several times, especially around the holidays.**

 **But, silver linings, you just got three new chapters to read, and a fourth on the way tomorrow. Rejoice!**

 **If you want to support me as a writer so I can pay my bills, I hav treon (p a treon . com (slash) James_D_Fawkes), and if P a treon is too long term, you could buy me a ko-fi (ko-fi . com (slash) jamesdfawkes).**

 **As always, read, review, and enjoy.**


	56. Tyranny 6-10

**Tyranny 6.10**

I'd always known. I hadn't wanted to admit it, I'd forced myself not to think about it, I'd denied it and tried to come up with every excuse, but I'd always, always known that the heroes I used were real people. That they'd once been flesh and blood and committed those great and terrible deeds for which they had been immortalized.

Even so, I'd denied the possibility, because of _her_. The one hero I wouldn't, _couldn't_ use, no matter what. As long as I could pretend that there was no substance to my heroes, I could pretend _she_ wasn't real. The wondrous, magical aspects to them only made it easier, because no one believed in magic, anymore.

But I'd always known, somewhere deep inside, that I was just fooling myself. That these heroes were real.

That _she_ was real.

I knew because I knew _her_ , and I knew her better than any other. How could I not? She was closer to me than any lover, any sister, any mother. I understood her in ways others could only dream of; her aspirations, her ambitions, her thoughts and feelings, they were all as familiar to me as the back of my own hand.

That was why I had absolutely refused to use her.

I had only ever Installed her once, and that once had been enough for a lifetime. Alone in the dark, shivering and afraid, desperate and maybe even dying, I had called out for someone to save me. I hadn't cared who it was or what they wanted in return, only that someone reached down and pulled me from that Hell.

I offered everything I was in exchange. Just as long as I was saved.

There was only one Heroic Spirit who had answered such a pathetic wish.

Heroic Spirit Khepri. From the dismal future of a different world was another me who became a Heroic Spirit. By sacrificing everything she was, by willingly casting aside whatever was necessary in order to save the world, she gained the power to enslave others — hero, villain, the threat she faced was one that required forgetting such categories in favor of the strongest, most unified army possible — and took the fight to…what, I didn't know. I hadn't wanted to know.

She answered me, and with a thousand skittering voices, I was protected from the filth in that locker.

And I'd spent the last four months running away from her.

When you came face to face with your own mistakes, the only thing you could do was look away.

There was no more running, now. I was simply out of other options, and if I wanted to save my friends, I couldn't afford to shy away from the one power, the one hero, who could protect them. Lisa and Amy were far more important than my fears and insecurities.

So, I didn't wait for everything to settle. I didn't take a moment to self-examine, to consider how my body had transformed. To begin with, this was simply an older version of myself. Instead, I reached for the power that was now mine and shouted at the top of my lungs the name of the Noble Phantasm that would let me save my friends.

 **Queen of Administration**  
"KHEPRI!"

Because to do that, I had to stop the fighting.

FIGHT

The world halted as everyone froze. Everyone in the area, everyone within the considerable range of my power, they all stopped. Everyone, from those who had been in the middle of attacking, to those who had been using targeted strikes to draw attention, to those who had been moving the wounded out of the way, to those who had been doing their best — whether through powers or through first aid — to treat the wounded, to even Noelle herself.

They all became _mine_.

FIGHT

It was the only way to save Lisa and Amy. I had to stop the fighting.

In life, during Gold Morning, the radius had been a meagre sixteen feet. Paltry, almost useless on its own. But the legend of Khepri contained a nearly limitless range, capable of stretching to any place, not only on Earth Bet, but on other Earths, as well. Even if the reality had involved the use of Doormaker's powers, that legend had increased the power and range of this Noble Phantasm when she became a Heroic Spirit.

Now, it covered the whole Trainyard.

FIGHT

By taking control of everyone, I could stop the fighting.

 _Breathe_ , I commanded my new familiars, and they all took breath, again. My control was simply that absolute, that they could do nothing I didn't order them to do. None of them had the resistance or mental defenses necessary to deny me.

As it should be. Even if some of these people would one day make it to the Throne, right now, they were all living humans.

FIGHT

I hated it, if I was honest. Even during Gold Morning, it had never been a pleasure or something I wanted, it was always only a necessity, a means towards an end. Khepri had become who she was always because it was necessary, though. Looking back at the end of that fight, I'd had some regrets, but she wouldn't for a moment have changed a thing if it meant letting the world die.

I had to stop the fighting.

FIGHT

My mental grasp reached out to Eidolon, to twist him to my will, to _take_ him and make him mine, and he resisted more than most. If it was anything other than a Noble Phantasm, he might have been able to muster a power to throw it off. Even still, the possibility existed that there was some power in his repertoire that would make his mind inviolable or create mental partitions, and in that case, he would absolutely be able to break free.

But right now, he couldn't. After a short, token struggle, he became wholly and completely mine.

Had to stop the fighting.

FIGHT

I forced him to dissipate the attack he'd been about to use on Noelle, the one that would have killed her and my friends. He fought against it, fought to keep hold of it, struggling against me like an ant against a mountain, but in the end, even Eidolon hadn't had as strong a will to face that final battle as I had. He'd let himself be defeated by guilt, rather than rushing on ahead no matter what, and he wasn't strong enough to overpower _my_ will.

The attack vanished like so much dust in the wind.

Had to stop the fighting.

FIGHT

I gritted my teeth against the encroaching madness that buzzed at the edges of my mind. _Focus_ , I told myself. _Focus_.

I had to… Had to save my friends. Right. Save my friends. That was why I was doing this. Why I had chosen this Noble Phantasm.

Stop the fighting.

FIGHT

"Apocrypha!" shouted Alexandria, the only one immune. "What are you doing?"

I ignored her. There was no time to deal with her bullshit. I had to save my friends.

I reached out, again, this time to Noelle. Like Eidolon, she, too, struggled against me, then folded like a house of cards. It should have ended there, it should have been easy from that point on, but even though Noelle herself caved under my will, _something_ rose inside of her and resisted more, resisted my control. It was alien and powerful and had millennia of weight behind it, pushing back against my will. It was like some elder god reaching out of the sea for the brave ship that tried to tame it.

The fragment of the beast that had granted Noelle her powers, I realized. Her passenger.

My mind burned as I reached deeper into the wells of my power, drawing further from my own will, but I ignored it and took hold of that fragment, what portion of it was within this world that I could touch, and _commanded_ it to bow to me.

 _Kneel_.

FIGHT

Were I merely human or nothing more than another cape, it would have disobeyed. It would have ignored me as I would an ant, and it would easily have shrugged off any paltry attempt at control I might attempt. Even Khepri at the height of her power would have been utterly unable to take direct control of a passenger.

But I was a Heroic Spirit, now. My power had been amplified at the moment of ascension. And I had to —

Stop fighting.

— save my friends. Even forcing Echidna's passenger to obey was not beyond me, now.

Beneath my iron will, it was crushed and brought to heel.

FIGHT

The encroaching madness inched further, inexorable, like sharp nails being driven slowly into my brain. I locked away the sections that it took, barricading as much of myself as I could behind walls of iron willpower and towers of razor focus. It would not hold, not for long, but I only needed it to last until everything was finished.

"Guh… Ha… Ha…"

Sweat poured down my head from the effort. Come on, Taylor. Can't give up, now.

I reached again for Noelle and her passenger, and now, lashed to my will, I commanded them with all the weight of my authority.

 _Let everyone go._

There was no resistance, now, only obedience.

Stop. Fight.

FIGHT

Noelle's lower half bulged and expanded, and one of the monstrous heads dropped its jaw to disgorge more of the bile and first one body, then another, then another, until at last, there was a blonde girl and a girl with mousy brown hair. Lisa and Pan… Lisa and Amy flopped bonelessly to the ground, hacking as they spat up whatever of the sickly fluid had managed to get into their mouths and stomachs.

But they were safe. They were safe, they were safe, they were _safe_. Alive, maybe not well, but they'd recover, and if my experience had been typical, quickly, too. That was what mattered.

Good. I had…

Stop. Fight.

I squeezed my eyes shut against the madness, swallowing thickly, and turned my mind away in order to keep my focus.

FIGHT

With a thought, I sent several of my thralls forward and to the task of recovering those Noelle had just spat out. I paid special attention to those who lifted Lisa and Amy from the muck, watching as they breathed and groggily tried to open their eyes. With those who didn't wear gloves, I checked their pulses at their necks, and though they were faster than they should have been, they were quickly starting to normalize.

Good. They were going to be okay. Everything was going to be fine. I hadn't lost my friends, wasn't going to lose them, and my fuckups hadn't hurt them irrevocably. I had just —

A hand suddenly seized me, lifting me up and off of my feet by the fabric of my flexible chest armor. I blinked, jarred off of my train of thought, into the snarling face of Alexandria.

"Apocrypha!"

Stop. Fight.

My heart thudded in my ears, impossibly loud.

FIGHT

"Them go let!"

Her words came to me as though across a great distance, garbled and nonsensical. Something felt different, wrong, _off_ , compared to just a second ago, but I couldn't put my finger on what it was. There was just that sense that something fundamental had just changed, and not for the better.

Alexandria shook me, violently. Why?

"Apocrypha! I you what understand do said? All them go let!"

Fight.

Everything crystallized. I understood, now.

Fight.

That was why she was shaking me.

Fight.

That was why she had such an aggressive expression on her face.

Fight.

That was why she was yelling.

Fight.

 _A thousand bugs in flight. My swarm, my constant allies, crawling, swooping, stinging. They marched to their deaths. They found every open place and flooded it. They were crushed and died. And in exchange, so did she_.

She was my _enemy_.

My chosen weapons appeared in my hands. A collapsible steel baton, the symbol of my mercy. An impossibly sharp knife, the symbol of my resolve. They fit in my grip like old friends.

 _Go for the eyes. One of them is already fake._

I brought my baton down _hard_ on Alexandria's arm, and her hand spasmed, surprise blooming across her face, as I jammed it into the crook of her elbow. If it actually hurt or not, if she could actually feel pain with her powers being what they were, I didn't know or care to know, at that moment.

I just saw an opening.

FIGHT

With my other hand, my knife, I struck, viper quick, aiming for her one, good eye. She didn't have a good angle, nor time to throw me away, and I swung out from her blindspot, but Alexandria wasn't one of the top three heroes in the world for nothing; she managed to tilt her head and dodge the main thrust of the blow, probably meant for it to skim off the protection of her helmet.

She had never seen a nano-thorn blade, before, however.

The edge of my knife sliced through her mask as though it wasn't even there, cutting through glass and steel alike like butter — and, more importantly, carving into the invulnerable flesh of her cheek beneath.

How much she actually felt it, again, I didn't know. The degree to which she could experience pain, again, I didn't know. Even so, she must have felt the cut, because she let out a screech — the closest thing to true fear I had ever heard from her, I would later think — and lashed out at me without bothering to control her strength.

 _Pop_

Except I was already gone the moment her fingers let go of me, and Trickster appeared in my place to take the attack.

It wasn't pretty.

At the time, I didn't have any consideration for that. But the way his chest caved in, the way each rib snapped like a piece of cheap plywood, the way, even after such a gruesome and fatal wound, her fist still had enough power behind it to go _through_ him and come out the other side, it wouldn't have been a pleasant or painless way to go.

Why Trickster? At that moment, when the decision was made, simple calculus. He was not entirely useless, but neither did he have the utility most of the rest of my swarm possessed. His was the least able body among the capes I controlled and the most injured. He was an acceptable loss.

It wasn't as though I didn't already have his power, anyway.

"Apocrypha!" shouted Alexandria.

FIGHT

But I was already moving my swarm. Legend swooped around, peppering her with lasers one after the other without stopping. She followed him with her head, but didn't strike back, even as they tore holes in her costume.

I had Eidolon hang back, swapping out his power for something with more bite to it. He was my reserve, to deliver the heaviest blows at the right moment.

Grace charged up, bouncing off of Assault like a superball, and in between Legend's lasers, landed a punishing blow with an invincible fist.

My lips pursed. It didn't seem to have any effect; Alexandria took it without trouble, without even a split lip to show for it.

Legend came back around, covering Grace's retreat, and from behind her, I had Miss Militia switch to a Desert Eagle with hollow point rounds and shoot, providing further distraction.

She was said to be immune to Master effects, and she appeared to be immune to my Noble Phantasm, so I had Gallant move back and out of the fight. He would be useless, and there was no point wasting him by having him try to fight a cape as powerful as her.

If I had thread on me, Clockblocker would be more useful, and I could pull the same trick I'd used against Echidna to split her in half. However, there weren't enough spiders around to weave anything with any speed at all, and I didn't have any on me, at the moment.

"Make don't me this do!"

 _Make you? You mean the way I made you threaten my friends?_

She was a fool, if she thought she could intimidate me into surrendering. A bigger fool, if she thought I could be frightened into hesitating, into giving ground, to allow her the upper hand in this fight. I wasn't scared enough of her, she didn't have the same sort of impossible, overwhelming _presence_ she'd had the last time she tried it, for it to work.

What was there to be frightened of? After all —

 _I've already killed you once. I can do it again._

I stopped. My thoughts ground to a halt.

What?

I'd already killed Alexandria?

A flash of an interrogation room. Alexandria sat across from me, and next to her, a man, a soldier, who fought every fight as a war. Tagg. Bugs, everywhere, pouring in, swarming, surging into their mouths and down their throats.

 _Yes_. _I drowned her on solid land._

Then…how was she still…? Who was I even…?

My brain burned. _FIGHT_ , every instinct was screaming. _FIGHT. FIGHT._

Except, who was I fighting, if Alexandria was already dead? How was I fighting her, if I'd already killed her? Why?

It didn't make any sense. It didn't make any sense at all.

I gritted my teeth. My skull was suddenly two sizes too small to contain my brain.

No, Alexandria wasn't who I should be fighting, was she? I couldn't agree with her methods. Her actions had long skewed too far from what was acceptable. However, in spite of her flaws and her mistakes, in spite of all the horrible things she'd done —

 _That's right. The true enemy is_ —

A hand took hold of me again, lifting me up off the ground until my toes dangled. Another had wrapped itself around my wrist, preventing me from leveraging my nano-thorn knife. To an outsider, I might have appeared helpless, defeated.

FIGHT

My thoughts sharpened, honed down to the point of a blade. No, none of that mattered right now. All that mattered was that there was an enemy in front of me.

"Chance this last your is," said Alexandria. "All them go let, take I'll up lose you consciousness until us or. I breath longer hold can than my much you."

I opened my mouth.

"Door me."

Surprise flickered across her face, and a moment later, Assault's power let me slip through her fingers and fall into the rectangle of light beneath me. Instantly, I was across the Trainyard, up in the air, and I threw my cape out wide like a pair of wings and came to a halt before I could start to fall, hovering above Echidna's frozen form.

No, I decided before I could even consider it. Using her would get too messy too quickly. Even if they were an incredible force multiplier, those clones would be far less reliable than the originals, and therefore not worth the hassle.

I eased off my cape and dropped like a diving bird to the ground, to land next to Miss Militia. Up above, Alexandria appeared again, flying over the railcars and looking around for me.

 _Don't let up. Give her no time to think._

FIGHT

Legend rose to meet her, firing more aggressively, now. Gone were the peppering strikes, replaced with his harder hitting beams. Lasers that carried concussive force, jostling her, lasers that cut, that burned, that froze, that disintegrated, that burst and flashed so bright it hurt to look at and left spots dancing afterwards. They did little to her except annoy her and dealt superficial damage to her costume.

I tapped Dauntless with invincibility from Othala and sent him up, next, to fly and weave in between Legend's lasers and strike at her with his arclance. He was not strong enough, yet, to match her blow for blow, but it didn't matter when he couldn't be hurt and kept her occupied.

She tried to escape, but although she was fast — one of the fastest fliers in the world — Legend was simply faster.

Finally, I pulled Eidolon from his hiding spot and sent him up, too, with aerokinesis to round everything out. He hadn't had enough time for the powers he'd grabbed to reach maximum maturity, but that was fine; I didn't need them at their best to make this work.

As I watched them fight, Legend blasting her with lasers, Dauntless swooping in with surgical strikes, Eidolon battering her around with bursts of air, I gathered the rest of my swarm around me almost unconsciously and settled in to wait.

It wasn't long. It took less than a minute for my chance to show itself, and Eidolon literally stole the breath from her lungs. Alexandria, the invincible hero who had only ever been wounded by the Siberian, was suddenly gasping for breath, clutching, panicking, at her throat.

 _There_.

Dauntless abandoned his arclance and shield and swooped up behind her, grabbing her to hold her in place. Legend and Eidolon both backed away, leaving him there alone, grasping at the woman who could snap everything short of an Endbringer in two.

His invincibility would be running out, soon. I had to make this count.

FIGHT

My nano-thorn knife and baton both disappeared, replaced with a single pistol, my last weapon, my least favorite weapon. I braced myself as I had learned to, took aim, with Dauntless as my marker, the way I had with bugs to similar effect, cocked back the hammer, and flicked off the safety. At last, I grasped Flechette's — Foil's — power and imbued that first bullet with it.

With this, the fight would be over.

"STOP!"

Something slammed into me, knocking me off course just as I pulled the trigger. My magic bullet went wide, off into the night.

"Doing are what you?!"

A nuisance. Another enemy getting in the way.

I lifted my pistol. Eight rounds left, I could afford to use one more.

And then I looked down into the face of Lisa Wilbourne and I froze.

No…

This… why would this person be an enemy?

" _Apocrypha_!" she said. "Stop this!"

FIGHT

My hand started to shake.

 _She's an enemy._

No. No, she couldn't be. After all, wasn't all of this, wasn't everything I'd done, here, wasn't it all…

But every instinct inside of me identified her as a target, another enemy, an obstacle to be removed. She was getting in my way of killing Alexandria, after all.

No. This was not an enemy. She could never be.

Yes, she was.

No.

Yes.

No.

Yes.

No.

Around and around, they chased each other, until my head was swimming and my vision swayed. I bit my lip so hard I tasted blood.

Her hands came up over mine and gently tried to pry my finger off of the trigger.

"Put the gun down," she told me. "Before you do something you'll regret."

 _Yes, she… No, how could she be… Lisa…_

"Come on, Chief," she said. Her hands were shaking. "This isn't you. You're letting _her_ control you."

 _I… I've always been… Haven't I? Wasn't it all…_

"If you follow the same path she did, all you'll wind up with is her same regrets."

A tremor of _something_ shot through me. Pangs of longing and guilt. Faint flashes of moments I wanted to _change_. Something wet was making trails down my cheeks.

 _I… I didn't… Even if there were things… Didn't I…?_

"Don't you remember?" she asked. "You didn't come here to kill anyone. You're a _hero_. You _save_ people. Even if they don't really deserve to be saved."

 _I… I never meant… All I ever wanted…was…_

To be a hero. To do the right thing. Even when it was hard, even when everyone else told me I was wrong.

"And you did it. I'm okay. _Amy's_ okay. So don't let her force you to become what you hate. You've already saved us."

…That was right. This had always been about saving them, hadn't it? My friends. My two friends. I'd risked so much, walked headfirst into the thing I'd been running from for four months, defied the _Triumvirate_ for their sake. I'd made so many promises, forgiven so many things that might have broken us otherwise. So why had I been about to…

FIGHT

FIGHT

FIGHT

FIGHT

I shut my eyes and clenched my teeth against the madness, letting out a long, hissing breath. In my mind, I erected pillars and walls, cordoning off this small moment of sanity, just long enough to —

"Guh…ha…ha…"

 _Snap_ , was the only way I could describe it. Like a rubber band snapping back, my mind cleared and my control of the capes around me vanished with it. They scattered immediately, backing away, giving me a wide berth.

I couldn't blame them. Even if it hurt, that I had lost the trust of people who had just minutes ago trusted me with their backs, I couldn't blame them. I… _Khepri_ had always known it was a violation, taking capes that way. Alienating. A step farther than could be accepted. It had, from the beginning, been a desperate measure.

I let go of my gun, and it disappeared, and beside me, Lisa let out a sigh of relief, shoulders sagging. I was tempted to join her, to let it all go, too, and just relax. I'd gotten my friends back. They were whole, they were okay.

But it wasn't quite over, was it?

Finish it. Don't stop until it's done.

I pulled myself from Lisa's grasp and turned around, and before Noelle could get her bearings, I took Narwhal's power and created a box-shaped forcefield.

"Wh-what?"

"Noelle," I said clearly. She startled and looked down at me. "I can fix you."

She blinked down at me, as though she wasn't sure she'd heard me right, then some mix between fear and hope crossed her face. "Y-you can?"

"Yes."

Her expression twisted. "Liar! You _liar_! It's _your_ fault all of this happened, you —"

"Let me put this another way," I cut across her. "I'm _going_ to fix you. The only thing that changes is whether or not you're going to make me hold you down while I do it."

She quivered, every part of her, and her nervousness seemed to amplify the erratic motions of the monstrous limbs on her lower half. Her face cycled through a complex mess of emotions, and she wrung her hands out.

I could only imagine what was going through her head. Her desperate desire to be healed, to finally be back to how she was before her nightmare began, warring with her distrust of me, whether I'd rightfully earned all of it or not…

I could understand her reticence.

"If," she began at length, "if you try anything funny, I'll —"

"I won't."

She fell silent for several seconds longer. Then…

"I…I can't control it," she admitted fearfully. "If you get too close, then…"

"I can handle it," I promised her.

She bit her lip, then nodded. "Okay."

I let out a sigh, and then dismissed the forcefields with a wave of my hand. The other heroes, even Lisa and Amy, took several reflexive steps back, but although her lower half's limbs tried to reach out for them, Noelle herself looked as though she was concentrating very hard on not moving.

Now for the hard part.

I gritted my teeth in preparation.

I couldn't do things the normal way, right now. No, I'd already been exhausted when I let Medea go earlier, and Khepri wouldn't have made things any better. If I tried to release her and perform another Install, I'd probably collapse immediately, and that would defeat the point. I was going to have to pull out my most dangerous trick.

Hotswapping.

 _Set_.

I reached for Medea again and took hold of her power.

 _Install_.

"Nnnnngg!"

The shriek came through my clenched teeth as a high-pitched groan. Every nerve in my body was suddenly alight with fire, burning, aching, searing, like being stabbed by thousands of needles from all over. My hands spasmed as Khepri was forced out and Medea shoved in, and the normally easy and effortless transformation let out ominous _cracks_ as my bones and body reshaped themselves.

 _I've had worse_ , I used to comfort myself. This had nothing on Bakuda's pain bomb. _Nothing!_

It was a cold, paltry comfort. Telling myself I'd been through worse did not suddenly make this all better, did not turn the shoots of pain lancing up and down my legs, across my chest, through my stomach, into a pleasant tingle. It was still a self-inflicted torture that threatened to bring me to my knees.

It was just made it one I knew I could handle.

An eternity of agony passed. The scant few seconds it actually took stretched out into forever, and by the time it was over, every part of me throbbed with vestigial pain.

There was a reason I hadn't done this since the first time I'd tried it.

 _I've had worse_ , I asserted again as I used Medea's staff to keep myself standing.

"Ha…ha…ha…"

I forced myself to focus past the pain and stood straight. My legs threatened to give out under me, but sheer willpower let me stay upright.

I lifted my staff and pointed at Noelle.

 **All Wounds Must Be Repaired**  
"Pain Breaker!"

Admittedly, it was more of a hunch than a sure thing. However, if it was possible that the method by which powers connected and manifested with a cape were a type of contract, something that Rule Breaker could shatter, then it should be equally possible that an effect such as this that resulted in a mutated body would count as a curse, would it not?

There were still other options available, if not, but if it did…

The effects were immediate. The mass of flesh began to boil and evaporate, rising off of her like steam and vanishing into the air. It flaked away like ash, lifting off in tiny bits, even as the main mass continued to roil and writhe, steadily shrinking.

It took less than a minute to finish, and when it was over, a skinny teenage girl was standing where the monster had once been. All that was left of "Echidna" was a pasty film that girl was standing in.

Noelle looked down, stupefied, at her legs.

"I'm me, again?" she asked.

She poked her thigh, then pinched it and winced, and then she smiled.

"I'm me, again!" she said giddily. "I…I'm back to normal! I'm…!"

She stopped, flushed, and pressed her hands over her front, shrieking, "I'm naked!"

I gritted my teeth. "It's not done, yet."

She looked back to me, startled. "Wh-what?"

"I just fixed your current problem," I told her grimly. "If we just leave it be, your —" _what did Khepri call it?_ "— _passenger_ will just reconnect and start this whole thing all over again."

Noelle just stared at me, ashen-faced. "You mean…I'm not fixed."

"Not _permanently_ ," I said. "Not _yet_."

Admittedly, it was mostly more guesswork, in the end. But it was guesswork that made sense. After all, if gaining powers was like a contract, a _geis_ , and geasa could be forced on you…

"Maybe you should…"

I turned to look at Lisa, whose mouth snapped shut immediately. She scowled. "Fine. You want to fuck yourself up even more, I guess I can't stop you. You're right, by the way," she added sourly. "She _will_ relapse, later, if you don't fix it, now."

Good to know.

I gritted my teeth again and reached out, this time for Aífe.

 _Set. Install._

"Nnnnnnnnng!"

It was worse the second time, much, much worse. A thousand red hot knives, molten lava poured through my veins, my bones splintering under my spasming muscles — I didn't have the words to describe exactly how awful it really was.

Still…Still not as bad as Bakuda's pain bomb, but…

"What's she doing?" Amy asked. Somewhere along the lines, she'd come back to my side and put my arm over her shoulders to support me. "I… I can't see anything."

"She's taking a shortcut," answered Lisa from my other side, sounding anything but pleased. She was holding me up by my other arm. "Fucking herself over so she can put off the side effects of overusing her power long enough to finish what she started."

"Nnnn…ha…ha…" I panted as the transformation ended. Everything still ached. Aífe just had a higher pain tolerance than Medea did. "I…am _not_ going to halfass this!"

Not the least of which because I'd just had a reminder of how badly my _own_ powers could have fucked me over.

When I felt sure enough to move, I took a step forward, and stumbled, nearly fell onto my face. Lisa and Amy were both there to keep me upright.

A brief flash of irritation came from Aífe, but I bit my tongue to keep it in. It wasn't their fault I felt like shit and needed help to stay standing.

But it wasn't going to get any better. Arguably, from here out, it would just get worse.

So, I shrugged myself out of their holds and stepped forward towards Noelle. I tried not to think too hard about the wobble in my walk, nor about how Lisa and Amy hovered around behind me, waiting for me to stumble, again.

"Either take a seat or lie down," I told Noelle, a little impatiently. "It doesn't really matter to me which."

She hesitated a moment, then, flushing again as she glanced down at her completely nude lower half, lowered herself to the gravel. She winced a little — a flash of sympathy told me that sitting naked on the gravel couldn't be comfortable, to say nothing of the ooze and ick coating it — and folded her arms to try and protect her dignity.

I took a bare second to glance back at everyone, at all the heroes who were watching, tense, waiting for things to go sideways again. Armsmaster stood at the front, halberd gripped tightly, lips pulled into a line. But none of them, not even Alexandria, was trying to stop me.

My own grip on my spear tightened, and I groaned quietly as I sank down to my knees, using it as a crutch to keep from falling over. Then, carefully, deliberately, I started carving the runes I would need.

It took longer than it should have to finish the circle of symbols, the array that surrounded Noelle. I didn't want to even imagine how bad things were going to be when I let Aífe go, that I was having so much trouble now.

But I powered through. I had to finish this.

Back in front of her again, I pressed my fingertips to the first rune, the primary one.

"Suidigidir."

The runes glowed, crackling, searing themselves into the ground. Noelle clutched suddenly at her head, pitching forward and doubling over, eyes clenched shut.

"What are you doing to me?" she demanded.

"Blocking your passenger," I told her.

A spell of binding, of a sorts. The results would isolate her from the influence of her passenger, but the method… There was some complicated babble that Aífe understood, but what it boiled down to was blocking Noelle off from extradimensional influence. It wasn't quite _that_ simple, but for an explanation, it was adequate.

It was normally used for things that were harder to hit, in this reality. Ghosts and spirits, or exorcising gods or demons from human hosts. Things that couldn't be handled through overwhelming physical force.

Against her passenger, it should work exactly like that.

A few moments later, the lightshow ended and Noelle collapsed, unconscious. After a second of hesitation, Amy stepped forward, knelt down, and pressed a few fingers to Noelle's bare leg.

"Subtle signs of transformation of her flesh," she mumbled. "…Fixed. No signs of further mutation." She let out a breath and looked at me. "It worked. I think."

I let out a breath of my own. It was finally over.

"Good."

I leveraged myself back up onto my feet. I smiled grimly.

Time to pay the piper.

"Release."

 _PAIN_

It hit me like a punch to the gut, only all over. Suddenly, everything was burning, from my nerveless fingernails to the roots of my hair to places I didn't even know _could_ hurt. The abruptness of it stole the breath from my lungs, so that I couldn't even scream. Even if I'd had the air, it might not have mattered, because at the same time, the equally sudden surge of _exhaustion_ stole the strength from my legs and my arms and _everything_.

The world pitched sideways. Distantly, I realized I was falling. I heard someone calling my name.

And then, I was gone.

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

 **Some of you guessed quite a while ago, exactly who this Heroic Spirit was that frightened Taylor so much. I couldn't go into quite as much detail as I wanted _why_ she's so scared of Khepri, it would've bogged down the chapter and wouldn't have fit.**

 **Hopefully, however, you can understand at least a _little_ of it. The exact reasoning will be discussed in more depth in the next few chapters, but it might help to remember that the reason why Taylor has her secondary powers _at all_ instead of just Installs is because her Trigger Event was so traumatizing that her power had to readjust to protect Taylor's mind from the ego of the Heroic Spirits on the Throne.**

 **I'm honestly surprised more people didn't get it, though. I mean, I pulled this straight from FSN. I even included a line almost directly quoted from it.**

 **If you want to support me as a writer so I can pay my bills, I have a (p) a treon (p a treon . com (slash) James_D_Fawkes), and if P a treon is too long term, you could buy me a ko-fi (ko-fi . com (slash) jamesdfawkes).**

 **Or if you want to commission something from me, check out my Deviant Art page to see my rates.**

 **As always, read, review, and enjoy.**


	57. Tyranny 6-11

**Tyranny 6.11**

I woke to a head swaddled in cotton, with ears plugged, nostrils congested, eyes burning and swollen shut, a tongue coated in wool, and worst of all, a brain that was obviously two sizes too big for my skull. That said nothing about the bone-deep ache that seemed to plague every single one of my major muscles groups, from my arms to my legs to my stomach and even in places I didn't _know_ had muscles, like someone had injected molten iron into them and it was only now cool enough that I wasn't burning alive.

I'd had the flu once when I was a little girl. I'd been achy and exhausted for almost two weeks, throwing up for about five days straight, nauseous enough for three people, and so miserable that even Emma and Mom's best efforts hadn't managed to make it bearable. Those last few days of it, when I'd been getting better but not quite gotten over it, where I'd been sore and tired but the nausea had passed and the worst of it was over?

This was like that, only about five times worse.

I took a deep breath, and shoots of pain lanced through every muscle in my chest. I gasped and flinched, squeezing my eyes shut as tears gathered at the corners, but that only made it worse, only sent the pain elsewhere and let it spread through every twitch and every minor movement, until I was paralyzed in place, trying not to set anything else off, as tiny shocks of agony radiated from my head to my toes and back again.

It felt like forever before it dulled down into a persistent but manageable ache. Until it felt far enough in the background that I could take another deep breath and blink my eyes open around the tears.

My glasses were missing, and my watery eyes made my already blurry vision even blurrier, but even like that, I could tell that the ceiling above me belonged to a room I didn't recognize.

"Wha…?"

Carefully, gingerly, I tried to sit up, wincing around the twinges of pain that lanced through every one of my muscles, but a strong, sturdy hand — although, in that state, any hand at all might have seemed strong and sturdy to me — gently pushed me back down.

"Take it easy," rumbled a familiar voice. "You shouldn't push yourself."

I blinked and followed the hand up to its owner, a fuzzy, fleshy blob outlined in a brown haze.

The finer details were indistinct, but that voice, that beard, it had to be…

"Armsmaster?" I murmured.

Suddenly, it all came back. The underground base, the mercenaries, Coil, Lisa and Amy being captured, Noelle's rampage, the Travelers.

Khepri. The hero I'd been trying to avoid for so long, the one whose very existence I had to deny as much as possible. The hero whose power had been so instrumental in saving my friends.

Then, switching to Medea to heal Noelle, switching to Aife to block her passenger from reconnecting and starting this whole thing all over again. Switching, without letting each hero go in between Installs.

Oh. Hotswapping. No wonder I felt like shit.

"It's me," he said softly.

I let him guide me back onto the bed, and I couldn't stop the sigh that passed through my lips as I relaxed back into it. The muscles in my chest and arms throbbed faintly, as though to protest that short bout of exertion.

"My glasses," I mumbled.

His hand moved away, reaching for something out of my view, then came back and lifted something up towards my face and slotted it over my nose — my glasses, just like I'd asked. I blinked as the world came into focus, and the bare face of Armsmaster, of Colin Wallis, looked back at me.

I glanced around slowly, but the room was no more familiar to me now than it had been when I couldn't really see it.

"Where…"

"You're in a private room at the PRT Headquarters," Armsmaster informed me without preamble. "You were brought here to recover, following the events of the battle with Noelle Meinhardt, codename Echidna. You've been resting ever since."

My mind snapped onto those words. Ever since? The way he put that…

"How long was I out?"

The last time I'd tried hotswapping, the first time I'd ever done it, I'd felt sick for almost a week afterwards. I'd actually had to skip school entirely for three whole days. Dad had thought I'd come down with the flu.

"Almost seven days," he replied gravely. "We brought you here shortly after three a.m., Monday, May Second. It is currently…" He checked the clock. "Five-thirty-six p.m., Sunday, May Eighth."

My heart leapt in my chest. A week. I'd been out for almost a week.

"What?" I croaked weakly.

That…that seemed like way too much time. A few days, I could understand. I'd been expecting that I might pass out for a day or two, after what I'd put myself through to get it all done. But a week? One whole week, or near enough that there wasn't much difference?

"You entered cardiac arrest shortly after losing consciousness," he went on severely. "Panacea was almost unable to resuscitate you, although I'm not sure I understood the exact nature of the difficulty."

"I…what?"

Cardiac arrest? What? How?

I tried to wrap my brain around it, but it was like he was speaking in technobabble: I recognized the words, even knew what they meant, but I couldn't comprehend how they came together to form a sentence.

Armsmaster leaned forward and pinned me with a dark-eyed stare. "You almost died," he enunciated clearly.

After a moment, he let out a breath through his nose and sat back in his chair.

"Although I don't quite understand how," he continued, "you put your body under so much stress that your heart shut down. First aid administered by Miss Militia and the efforts of Panacea managed to keep you alive, but I've been told it was a very close thing."

He shifted a little in his seat.

"How are you feeling?" he asked awkwardly.

I shifted a little myself, wincing as new shoots of pain accompanied the motion.

"Sore," I settled for.

"I see," he said, frowning. "Originally, we put you on a standard hospital bed. However, after the first day, at the suggestion of Tattletale, corroborated by Panacea, we sent a team to your house to bring in your own personal mattress, on the understanding that it would help accelerate your recovery."

Wait.

"This is _my_ bed? From my room at home?"

The one I'd enchanted, so that three hours of sleep was just as restful as a full eight hours would be on a regular mattress? This was _that_ bed?

He nodded.

"Yes. At that time, your father had already contacted the police to file a missing persons report, and it was deemed unavoidable —"

But I'd been doing the mental math as he spoke, only half paying attention to the rest, and shot up as I realized exactly how long I'd been asleep.

"I've been sleeping for almost three weeks!?" I shrieked.

A moment later, the throb of my protesting body hit, and I sank back down like a limp noodle with a groan. The sudden movement had done me no favors at all, and right about then, I was regretting a whole lot of things — like ever having been born in the first place.

Three weeks, though? Or, well, about eighteen days, give or take, but it was close enough. That was basically a coma. Wasn't it? Fuck if I cared about the medical definition, it was definitely long enough that it _should_ be one.

 _How_ …

The thought sent a cold jolt through my stomach, and I swallowed around it nervously.

 _How close did I actually come to dying, that I slept for the equivalent of eighteen days and_ still _feel this shitty?_

I'd known it was going to be bad. I'd known going into it that it was going to put a lot of pressure on my body, on top of the strain from using my other heroes. I'd even, back when I was talking to Alexandria, considered the possibility that I could accidentally kill myself, if I pushed too far or tried to reach beyond my limits.

But…

It was one thing to say it and think it. To face the reality of it was…frightening. Daunting.

No, the best word was… _sobering_. Like getting dunked in ice water.

"Eighteen days?" Armsmaster asked.

I swallowed thickly again, and it was almost like I was looking on from outside my body as my lips answered him on their own. "My bed is enchanted so that three hours is equal to a full night's sleep. If you've had me sleeping in it since the Monday night, then I've slept for the equivalent of about eighteen days."

I wetted my lips.

"What… What happend, after I…"

He frowned a moment.

"Fortunately, there were no fatalities on our side. Everyone who was absorbed by Echidna is expected to make a full recovery, and there are no apparent negative side effects as a result of exposure. There are still a few people in Master-Stranger quarantine, but we don't expect any complications."

My heart leapt in my chest. "Wait. But Alexandria said…Brandish died!"

I remembered that, specifically. I remembered, because it felt like the biggest fuckup of the entire night, that my stupidity and my hang-ups had gotten Amy's mom killed. I remembered what a fucking punch to the gut it was when Alexandria told me about it.

He grimaced, working his jaw a little.

"Brandish is currently in a coma," he said at length. "Her condition is stable, but if or when she'll recover, we simply don't know. She was pronounced dead at the scene, but through the efforts of both Scapegoat and later Panacea, she was resuscitated. However, as a result of the trauma and oxygen deprivation to her brain, permanent damage occurred. Scapegoat was unwilling to risk a bad interaction between brain damage and his power, and Panacea is well-known for her inability to affect brains. We are…currently examining every available option, to aid in her recovery."

 _You're wrong_ , was on the tip of my tongue. Amy _could_ do brains. She was perfectly able. That was how I…that was how Khepri had been made, after all. Amy had used her powers to induce something akin to a second trigger event, by directly manipulating my Corona Gemma and Pollentia.

Except _no one_ knew that her limit was entirely self-imposed. No one except me and Amy and maybe Glory Girl. To everyone else, it was accepted fact that Panacea's Manton Limit included brains. To everyone else, it wasn't that Amy refused to affect brains, it was that she couldn't.

My mouth closed. I let the comment evaporate off of it. Maybe later, I could do something for Brandish. I…wasn't sure brain damage was as easy to fix as an arm.

"And the clones?" I asked eventually.

He grimaced.

"Dead."

"What?" I started to throw myself up again, but managed to stop halfway and slowly lower myself back down. More quietly, in a calmer tone, I managed to groan out, "What do you mean, dead?"

"Once you were stable and everyone had been rounded up, Panacea examined them in the aftermath," Armsmaster explained. "According to her, they all suffered from numerous defects and malformations in their major organs and other vital tissues, particularly in the brain. She estimated their average life expectancy to be somewhere between three to five days."

He looked distinctly uncomfortable.

"It was considered…more humane to sedate them and let them die painlessly in their sleep."

"Every one of them?" I whispered.

Even those like the Fingerpainter, who hated what they were and what they were doing, but followed Noelle's orders because it was what they'd been programmed to do?

"I'm…sorry," he said awkwardly. "However, as Panacea is unable to affect brains and they would likely have spent the rest of their lives, short as they would be, locked away in an asylum, it was the…best answer we could come up with."

 _Except she can!_

I swallowed the words before they could even make it to my tongue, closing my eyes for a brief moment.

It was unfair, placing that on Amy's shoulders. In another life, in another world, Lisa and I had helped to destroy Panacea, however unwittingly we'd done it. We — _they_ — had been the first shove that sent her teetering over the cliff. Here, now, she was my friend, and the least I could do for _this_ Amy was to be better to her than Khepri had been to the Panacea of her own world.

It didn't remove the sting entirely. They had been clones, yes, and they'd been twisted — irreversibly, it seemed — by Noelle's power, but in the end, hadn't they still been _people_? Even Khepri had hesitated, at first, even when faced with their violence and vitriol. Wasn't that proof enough that they were still _human beings_?

"And… And everyone else?"

"As I said, they are all expected to make a full recovery. Aside from you and Brandish, everyone has already been cleared by both Panacea and the PRT's medical staff."

Which meant Battery and Grace were okay, too.

Take that win, Taylor. You didn't screw up _everything_ last…last _week_.

Fuck, I still hadn't quite wrapped my head around that. _Eighteen days_.

"So, what now?" I asked him quietly. "Where do we go from here, Armsmaster?"

His lips thinned. "As soon as you're able to walk there on your own, Director Piggot has requested a meeting with you, to debrief regarding the events in the Trainyard and discuss the issue of future cooperation."

'Requested.' At least he'd been polite enough to make it sound like I was being asked, rather than told. 'Future cooperation.' In other words, they were going to try and press me into joining the Wards.

I wasn't sure I wanted to refuse them, anymore. Some part of me still rejected the idea, insisted that I remain independent. After all, I still didn't completely trust them, and knowing what I did now, about the corruption and the puppet strings in the background, it seemed all the more justified. Putting myself at the mercy of Alexandria? That alone was almost a dealbreaker.

But some other part of me found the idea attractive. Having a team to rely on. Having people at my back. Having someone else to make the big decisions, so that I wouldn't be to blame for any screwups. Even Khepri, after all, had eventually joined the Wards.

Although that, too, might be reason enough to say no.

"And my dad?"

"On his way," he answered. "We contacted him as soon as you showed signs of waking up. He should be here shortly."

If he was going to be making a trip to visit me at the PRT headquarters…

"How much does he know?"

Armsmaster shifted uncomfortably, again.

"We did our best to respect your apparent wishes, regarding your secret identity," he began. "However, since he filed a missing person's report and we brought your bed here, there were some things that were…unavoidable. He is aware, now, that you are a cape. In our attempts to respect your privacy, we didn't tell him which one."

Great.

I let out a little sigh. There was no avoiding it, now. The cat was out of the bag, and Dad officially knew I that I had powers.

 _Well_ , I thought wryly, _I did promise myself I'd tell him once the whole thing with Coil was over with_.

This just wasn't quite how I'd thought that would happen.

"In the meantime," Armsmaster went on, "there _are_ other people who would like to visit you, if you feel up to it."

My brow furrowed. "I have visitors?"

My friends.

I perked up a little. "Lisa? Amy?"

"Tattletale is…currently under PRT protective custody," he admitted. "While she is assisting in the seizure of Coil's assets and the dismantling of his organization. Panacea, however, has been onsite monitoring your condition and asked to be informed when you woke up. She should be here —"

A knock came at the door.

"— momentarily."

He stood with a creak from his chair, then went to the door and opened it. He'd barely gotten the knob turned before Amy flung it wide, brushing past him as though he wasn't there and crossing the room at speed. She threw herself onto my bed, wrapping me in a bone-crushing hug that tore the breath from my lungs, and over her shoulder and through her hair, I saw Armsmaster quietly leave, shutting the door behind him.

"Oh my god!" Amy said into my pillow. "You fucking bitch, do you have any idea how fucking badly you scared me? Don't you _ever_ do something like that again!"

 _Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow!_

"Air!" I wheezed breathlessly. I slapped weakly at her back, which was all I could manage in my condition. "Air, Amy!"

"What?"

She pulled back, and I winced, shutting my eyes against the wracks of pain that radiated out from where she'd hugged me. Tears gathered in the corners, and as I took in gasping breaths, it only got worse.

"Oh fuck," I heard her mumbled. "Shit. I didn't even think…"

She fumbled around with my hand a little bit, held it firmly but gently, but after a moment, she sighed and let it drop back to the bed.

"Damn it."

I blinked through the tears as my breathing started to calm back down and the pain faded back into the dull throb from earlier. When I could see properly again, Amy was looking down at my hand, a miserable expression on her face. She glanced up, only for a moment, to meet my gaze, then back down, again.

"I can barely see you, anymore," she muttered, running a finger over the back of my hand. "So I can't do anything for the pain. I'm sorry."

"It's okay," I managed.

"It's not okay!" she burst out. "I could only barely see enough of your heart to get it beating again and keep it beating! I had to work around the fuzzy bits, trigger nerves whose location I knew only because I had enough examples and enough experience to know where they're _supposed_ to be! I was doing heart surgery _blind_ , Taylor!"

Her grip on my hand tightened, painfully.

"You were clinically dead for almost two minutes! If I hadn't gotten your heart started again, you…!"

She sniffed, wiping at her eyes with her other hand.

"I almost wasn't good enough," she continued, quieter. "If…If I'd screwed up, if I'd done just one thing wrong, you…you wouldn't have made it."

Wouldn't I? Would Alexandria, would _Contessa_ have let someone with a power like mine just die like that? How much trouble _her_ power had with me…I had no idea. But Alexandria could have flown me to any hospital in the city in a matter of seconds. With Doormaker, they could have me at any hospital in the _world_ in the blink of an eye. If they wanted me and my power badly enough, they could definitely have saved me.

But…

I squeezed Amy's hand back, as much as I was able.

Even if they could have, they didn't. Whether they'd trusted Amy would manage it or…whatever else the reason might have been, it didn't matter. What mattered was —

"But you did," I told her softly. "I'm here, Amy. You managed it."

I held out my arms invitingly, and her lower lip wobbled just a little, then she threw herself back onto me in another hug. It still hurt, but I was prepared for it, this time, and Amy was gentler, so I didn't feel like I was being crushed. I hesitated for a moment, and then I hugged her back.

I'd had Khepri in my head — twice, now; once during my Trigger Event, unwillingly, and once during the fight, intentionally — and I'd been privy, as a result, to her thoughts and feelings, her regrets and her traumas. I knew the mistakes she wished she could have fixed, the ones that had haunted her, in the quiet moments, that she didn't tell anyone about. The ones that she buried in the dark, so that they couldn't stop her.

What had happened to Amy was one of them.

Never being able to see Lisa, her best friend, ever again, that was another.

My other heroes… They had influenced me in subtle ways, over the last few months. Ways I didn't fully understand, to extents that I would probably never really know. Especially those with whom I'd drawn a special connection, with whom I sympathized and empathized, that influence was likely all the stronger.

What would that mean, then, for the Heroic Spirit with whom I shared the greatest connection: my own identity? How much had Taylor Hebert influenced the thoughts and feelings of Taylor Hebert?

How much of my friendship with Lisa was me, and how much was Khepri's lingering sentiments, leftover from my Trigger? How much of my friendship with Amy was my own feelings, rather than the echo of Khepri's regrets?

How much of my willingness to bend over backwards for them, to forgive the fiasco at the bank, to overlook manipulations and ulterior motives, was a result of my own hang-ups and how much was Khepri's own desires?

I didn't know. That was part of why I'd been so afraid of Khepri. Not the only reason, maybe not even the biggest reason, but it was definitely a significant part. If I used Khepri, at what point would her influence be great enough that I stopped being me entirely and became her? At what point would I become a twisted, even more broken mockery of myself?

In the end, I decided to think about that stuff later and deal with my existential crises when I had time alone. Right then, Amy needed me more than I needed to get my head sorted.

A few minutes later, she pulled away, sniffling and wiping her eyes with her hand.

"Sorry," she mumbled. "I just… I almost lost you, and… Yeah. Um. Anyway. Uh. How… How are you feeling?"

"Sore," I said, "but otherwise, fine."

"Ugh." Her cheeks burned. "And I just… Fuck. I probably shouldn't have…"

"It's fine," I told her.

She didn't seem to agree, but didn't argue the point.

Changing the subject, I asked, "How are you?"

"Me?" she parroted incredulously. " _I'm_ not the one who spent the last week in a bed!"

"I mean, after Noelle… No side effects?"

There hadn't been, for Khepri, not as far as I could tell. Not as far as she remembered.

But as much of Khepri's knowledge had held true as it had, she was still from a different world, a different timeline. I… There were still a few things I wasn't willing to take her experiences as gospel for.

Amy frowned. "No. Everything cleared up…pretty quickly. And, well, my power means I can just kill any infection, so…"

She trailed off for a moment.

"Lisa's fine, too," she added, almost reluctantly. "And…everyone else that got absorbed. No lasting symptoms. No long term problems."

She hesitated, fiddled with the hem of her shirt. By now, I recognized it as the urge to grab a cigarette.

"I can…go get her, if you want. Lisa, I mean. If you'd rather see her."

"…No," I said at length. "I can…talk to her later."

My feelings for Lisa, after Coil, were…complicated. Khepri had only made them more so. I'd have to confront them, at some point, figure things out, but for now, there were other things on my mind. Lisa could wait.

And as long as she was here, she was safe.

"Are…you going to be okay? I mean, your mom…"

Amy grimaced and looked, suddenly, as tired as I'd ever seen her. She let out a heavy sigh, rubbing at the bridge of her nose.

"I…haven't been home, since the incident," she admitted wearily. "I've been…avoiding it, I guess. Because if I go back, then Vicky…"

She pulled her other hand out of mine, almost guiltily, like she expected me to blame her.

"I… _can't_ do brains," she said slowly, haltingly, like she didn't want to even say it out loud. "Not…because my powers don't let me, but…because it's so _easy_. Everything is so delicate, all it takes is one, little tweak, and I can _remake_ someone however I want them to be. Just…turn down dopamine production and they're _miserable_ for the rest of their lives, turn it up and they'll never be sad again. Fix this, change that, and I can erase memories, cripple motor skills, or turn a sociopath into a functioning, well-adjusted member of society."

She fiddled with her fingers.

"I can't… It's _too much_ ," she went on. "I…I _can_ fix Carol, undo the damage, but what if I don't _stop_ there? It's so _easy_ , I could just make a few tweaks, and suddenly, _I'll_ be her favorite daughter, the one she's always doting on, and if I do it to her, why not Mark, why not Vicky, why not…"

I reached out and weakly took hold of her hands.

"I know," I told her softly.

She blinked.

"You… you do?"

"The Heroic Spirit I used…gave me some insight into things," I confessed vaguely. "I've seen what each of us could have become. Where we could have gone. I'm the _last_ person who has any right to blame you for being scared of what you can do."

Because even having used her, Khepri still scared me. I still couldn't stand her or what she'd become. It was just that ignoring her, pretending she didn't exist, and handicapping myself that way was no longer an option.

It wasn't just Khepri, either. There were some Heroic Spirits that I'd been staying away from, to avoid the problems they had. Letting troublesome personalities bother me…now, it seemed kind of foolish. Compared to Khepri, the one hero I couldn't approve of no matter what, they were more like annoying quirks than actual issues.

I was going to have to look at it on a case-by-case basis, though. There was a difference, after all, between a troublesome personality and those who were outright destructive or reductive, like Jack the Ripper.

"So…you're not the only one, you know…who knows how much of a monster you can become," I said. "In some ways…I could be worse."

Amy smiled a tired smile, but it didn't quite reach her eyes. I wasn't sure she believed me. "Thanks, Taylor."

A knock came at the door, and Amy jolted, then turned to it and shouted, "All right! I'll just be a minute!"

She pulled her hands out of mine, almost reluctantly, like she would've preferred to stay there with me, and said, "I've…gotta go."

"Go?"

"There are other people who want to visit you," she explained. "Um, privately. I'll…still be here, I'm… _technically_ your attending physician, so I'll be sticking around until you leave, but after that…"

She shrugged helplessly.

"I…guess I'll just have to go…home."

"You…could stay in the castle," I offered. "Or…with me and my dad, even. If I explained everything…"

I couldn't see Dad saying no, if I told him what Amy was going through. I was almost certain he'd let her stay as long as she decided she needed to.

"I'll…think about it," she hedged as she stood. "And I'll be back later, too, to check on you."

Then, she turned, went to the door, and as she opened it and left, I vaguely heard someone say, "…in now, Miss Alcott."

A moment later, a young girl came into the room, with long, brown hair and big, gray eyes.

Dinah Alcott. So much stuff had happened, with Lisa, with Noelle, with the fight and everything else, I'd forgotten about her completely.

"Hi," she said nervously.

"Um…hi," I replied.

I…didn't know what to say. A part of me wanted to apologize, for playing a part in her kidnapping, however small, except I _knew_ those were Khepri's feelings, Khepri's regrets. Me, I, hadn't been involved, not even tangentially. I wasn't an Undersider in this life, I hadn't gone to the bank to rob it, and so I wasn't connected to Coil's kidnapping of her from her home.

But I _had_ delayed dealing with him. Out of spite, I'd left it in Lisa's hands, and as a result, Dinah had spent longer in his clutches than if I had just gone and dealt with him immediately. The least I could do was apologize for letting her suffer because of my own problems.

When I went to say it, though, I couldn't find the words. No matter how I put it, it still felt like I was justifying my own pettiness, after the fact.

"87.94 percent chance you let me hug you," she said suddenly.

I blinked, thrown.

"What?"

Without any more warning, she threw herself onto my bed and wrapped her arms around me as best as she could. I was so surprised, I almost missed what she said next.

"83.28 percent chance you join the Wards if you don't use your powers during the negotiations," she whispered into my ear hurriedly. "91.42 percent chance if you don't explain things to your father."

"And if I _do_ use my powers?" I muttered back.

"I don't know," she admitted. "The numbers get strange when your powers get involved."

Then, she extricated herself, leaving sore spots behind where she'd landed. Fortunately, she was all of four-and-a-half feet tall and maybe eighty pounds soaking wet, so it didn't hurt nearly as bad as it had taking a ballistic hug from Amy.

"Sorry," Dinah mumbled. "I just…wanted to thank you, and this was the only way I could figure out how."

It took me a moment, longer than it really should have, to figure out what she meant: not the hug, but the numbers she'd given me during it. _That_ was her way of thanking me for saving her.

I didn't feel like I deserved it, because Lisa had been the one to kill Coil, and I'd gotten so distracted with everything else that I'd never managed to go back for Dinah.

"Dinah," I told her, "I didn't…really… It wasn't me who…"

But she gave me a small little smile, tinted with something I couldn't quite describe. "You came for me," she said simply. "That's all that matters."

It didn't feel like it. It didn't feel like I'd done anything at all that was worthy of her gratitude. She should be shouting at me, demanding to know why I'd left her locked up while I went to chase after Noelle and my friends, not trying to help me keep my independence as a cape.

"…You're welcome," I muttered at length.

But she seemed to have made up her mind on it, so I wasn't going to argue.

"You're…okay, though, right? You weren't hurt or anything?"

She winced. "I… The withdrawal has been…hard, but not as bad as it could have been."

Right. Yes, she'd been kept by Coil longer in Khepri's world. At least several more weeks. Here, now, it had been less than a month.

"So…you're going to be okay?"

She hesitated, then gave me that smile again, "Not…not immediately, but…I'll get there."

Had she asked her power about it? I had no idea. It must've been a cold comfort, if she had, in the face of what she knew was to come.

But…she seemed much better off than she had been for Khepri. More stable, less jittery, less rattled about things. Calmer. Not happier, necessarily, but more at peace and less worried. I didn't know if it was because she'd spent less time with Coil, or if it was just that she'd had a week to get herself sorted, get over the worst of the symptoms.

I… _hoped_ things were better for her. The Dinah Khepri had known, if only fleetingly, had been welcomed back by her parents with tears and hugs. Here…without me, without _Khepri_ there to hold her hand and force the issue, had she even gone home, yet, at all?

A pang of sympathy curled in my gut. Somehow, I doubted it.

"Either way," she said, "I just wanted to thank you for saving me. So…thank you."

Then, she turned and made to leave.

"I hope everything goes okay for you, Dinah."

At the door, she stopped a moment, standing there, and I barely heard her whisper, "Me, too."

The door clicked shut behind her, and for the first time since I'd woken up, I was well and truly alone.

Dad was next, wasn't he?

The thought made my stomach churn. They said they hadn't told him much, so…what must he be thinking, to explain to himself why I'd been in a coma for a week? Had they even told him that, or just said that he couldn't visit, yet? Did he even know I was okay? Did he even know how close I'd come to dying?

A swirl of guilt swam in my chest.

He must have been worried sick. He probably spent the entire last week wearing a hole through the living room floor, imagining all of the different things that could possibly be wrong with me, all of the different injuries I could've taken that would have me in a private room at the PRT headquarters.

He'd probably spent the last week without sleep, too.

I should have told him much sooner, I really should have. Not that it would have made things any better, really, but at least then he'd have had some idea of what was going on or where I could be and he wouldn't have just woken up Monday morning to find my bed empty and all three of us gone.

I couldn't even imagine the first thoughts that went through his head, that day. What he must have been thinking, what conclusions he would have drawn, how terrified he must have been that he'd lost me, too —

A knock sounded at the door, jarring me out of my depressive spiral, and Armsmaster, fully armored with helmet in place, leaned in.

"Miss Hebert?" he said. "Your father is downstairs, checking in with security. However, there's still one other person who would like to see you, if you're up for it."

One other person? Lisa, maybe? No, probably not.

"Um, okay," I said. "Send them in, I guess?"

He stepped out of the way, and past him, through the door, walked —

I straightened, heart fluttering nervously in my chest.

She smiled a little awkwardly and flattened down the hem of her shirt. "Hello."

— _Noelle Meinhardt._

"You're…"

She laughed, self-deprecating. "Yeah, I wasn't sure I'd get the nerve up for this, either. I guess, in the end, I just…couldn't leave things unsaid, you know?"

"You're okay, right?" I blurted out. "I mean, everything's…you know…"

"Um, yeah." She patted her thighs, as though to reassure herself that they were actually still there. "Yeah, everything's…okay. No sign of relapse. Um. Panacea says I'm okay, and I guess she'd be the one to know, you know? So…"

She trailed off.

"Oh," I said lamely. "Good. That's…good."

We fell into a long moment of awkward silence.

"So," Noelle broke in suddenly. "I'm…not going to stay here long and commiserate or anything, so I'm just going to say what I came to say and go."

"O…kay," I said.

"I can't thank you enough," she told me. "Because of you, I'm back to normal. I have my legs back. I have my normal life back. My head's clear, I don't have my powers messing with me, body or mind. You saved me — in almost every way imaginable. I owe you a debt I can never, ever repay, and I mean that. But…"

She looked away, folding her arms as though to hug herself.

"But," she went on, "it's also because of you that Krouse is…is dead. He…wasn't the best man in the world. Maybe he wasn't even a very good man. In fact, he…made a lot of questionable decisions. But he loved me, and I loved him. And you…you're responsible for him being gone. You're the one who got him _killed_! If it hadn't been for you, he'd still be…!"

"…I'm sorry," I said quietly. It seemed woefully inadequate.

Her fingers curled, digging into the flesh of her arms, and her shoulders trembled. She looked as though she was trying very, very hard not to reach out and strangle me, and at least some part of me wouldn't have blamed her if she had tried.

"…I can't," she said brokenly. She shook her head, a single pair of tears trailing down her cheeks. "I _can't_ forgive you. Not… Not for Krouse. Not now, maybe…maybe not _ever_. I…"

She shook her head again, then she turned and almost dashed for the door, choking out, "I'm sorry!" as she went. A moment later, I was alone again.

…Another one of my fuckups from that night. I hadn't liked him, Khepri hadn't really ever either, but he was still a person with people who cared about him and I'd still gotten him killed.

And yet, all I felt was…not quite ambivalence, but something close to it. Maybe it was because some part of me blamed him for how things had gone that night. That it was his own fault he'd gotten killed, because he'd made some equally stupid decisions, that night.

Was that how Khepri had slid down that slope? Rationalizing and making excuses for why she shouldn't feel guilty about _this_ death or _that_ person dying? Was this, now, more of her influence, or was I just destined to follow the same kind of path she did?

Paper crinkled as I adjusted myself a little, and I reached down underneath me to pull out a small slip that looked like it had been torn from a notebook. In a small, tidy scrawl was written:

 _98.61% chance he forgives you_.

Dinah.

Something trembled inside my chest, something so powerful that I felt tears forming in the corners of my eyes. A great swell of gratitude rose alongside it, and my quivering lips drew up into a smile.

 _Thank you, Dinah_.

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

 **The week before last was...a lot of dealing with real life problems, so I didn't have the energy or drive to get any writing done, which is what pushed this back a week.**

 **Anyway. There was a lot of stuff that went into this chapter as it is now. Originally, Danny was going to be in it, too, but it was getting too long, so I left his part out and decided to put it into the next chapter, his interlude. The confrontation with Piggot should also be next chapter, too.**

 **Also, at the end of this arc, I'll post the Essential Material section. I've been trying to figure out a way to give those to you guys without making you visit an external site or a separate story link on _this_ site, and the conclusion I came to was what I originally didn't _want_ to do, but I don't have a better idea. It'll get updated every time I have a new entry to put in.**

 **Also-also, I do commissions, now. You can find prices at my deviant art profile. Right now, I'm trying to recoup my losses from my ridiculous string of bad luck in FGO (almost 1300 SQ before I finally got a SSR Servant, the majority of that spent trying to get Enkidu, and it was fucking _Orion_ , rather than Musashi, who I was rolling for, or...you know, any character I actually _wanted_ ). **

**If you want to support me as a writer so I can pay my bills, I have a (p) a treon (p a treon . com (slash) James_D_Fawkes), and if P a treon is too long term, you could buy me a ko-fi (ko-fi . com (slash) jamesdfawkes).**

 **Or if you want to commission something from me, check out my Deviant Art page to see my rates.**

 **As always, read, review, and enjoy.**


	58. Interlude 6-b: In Love and War

**Interlude 6.b: In Love and War**

The last week had been Hell for Danny Hebert.

Things had started off fairly well. Despite the circumstances, he'd gotten a chance to meet Lisa and Amy, Taylor's two new friends. It had started a little awkward, true, but once the conversation had really picked up steam, they'd talked and talked and talked…more in that one dinner than any in recent memory, if he was honest.

It was good.

He'd learned more about the new people in his little girl's life, he'd been able to see her brighten and smile and just be happier than…than she'd been since Annette died.

That…That had a lot of complicated feelings attached to it, sure, and maybe it'd helped to drive home again exactly how much he'd neglected her happiness and how much of a bad father he'd been the last couple of years, yes, but the important part was that he was getting to see her _happy_. She was actually, honestly smiling, and if there was a little tension as they all tried to figure out how they fit together, that wasn't necessarily _bad_. In fact, it was basically expected, wasn't it?

When Taylor asked to let her friends spend the weekend, Danny was only too happy to let her, thinking nostalgically of the days when she and Emma were attached at the hip. Whatever had happened with Emma, Danny still didn't understand, but Taylor was moving on, finding new friends, she was _better_ than she had been, and he wasn't about to discourage that by telling her no, not over something as simple as a sleepover.

And the next few days, things only got better. The girls spent most of the time squirreled away in Taylor's room, but at breakfast and lunch and dinner, they all talked and talked, mostly about inanities, but it was easier and smoother than that first night. Danny was surprised to realize they were the happiest three days he'd had in…months, really.

And then it all came crashing down Monday morning when he knocked on Taylor's door, only to open it and find the bed made and all three of them missing.

Well, he'd thought at the time, they must have gone with Taylor on her morning run. It niggled at him, because they hadn't the other two days, but he convinced himself that she must have managed to convince Lisa and Amy to go along, and they'd be back in time to go to school.

That time came and went, and still, there was no sign of them. They must have gone straight to school, he reasoned instead, even though Taylor had always come home to shower after her run. Still, he had to believe that, that Taylor and Amy were at school and Lisa…

Except Lisa had her GED.

Around 10:30, as that realization struck him, he called Arcadia to check, but there was no sign of her. According to their attendance rolls, she was absent, she'd never set foot in the school. They wouldn't answer him when he asked about Amy, too, because he wasn't listed as family or anything on her emergency contact information, but they didn't really need to.

When he tore through the phonebook and called up the Dallon residence, no one answered. When he tore through it again, the only Wilbourne listed in the book was a middle-aged couple that lived on the complete other side of the city and had never _had_ a daughter, let alone one named Lisa.

He'd remembered a few minutes later that Taylor actually had a cellphone, now, so he tried that, next, hoping against hope that she'd pick up, but she didn't. He tried once, twice, three times, one after another, but each one went to voicemail without even ringing.

Panicked, Danny had taken the rest of the day off and drove straight to the local precinct just before lunch, where he was summarily informed that a person could only be considered "missing" if it had been at least a day since they'd disappeared. Something of his desperation must have shown, however, because a man with a slight limp calling himself Detective Doyle came over and offered to expedite the paperwork.

He hadn't felt much better by the time he made it home (with the promise to call if any news came in about Taylor), and his stomach rebelled at the mere idea of eating, so he skipped dinner. He had resigned himself to a sleepless night, waiting by the phone in his chair, when a knock came at the front door.

Danny leapt out of his seat, heart pounding — except the person on the other side of the door wasn't Taylor, but a man in a suit with short-cropped brown hair and a neatly trimmed beard, who introduced himself as Colin Wallis and asked to come in.

Colin Wallis didn't tell him much. What he _did_ say was good news: that Taylor was okay and uninjured, that she was recovering from her ordeal at the PRT Headquarters downtown, and the most surprising thing of all, that Taylor was a cape. A parahuman, was the word he used.

He didn't explain _what_ ordeal or _why_ it was the PRT HQ and not a hospital, which was frustrating and worrying but not, when Danny (belatedly) realized he was talking to what amounted to an agent of the federal government about what may well be a classified incident, unexpected. He didn't even tell Danny which cape Taylor was, citing respect for her privacy and something that boiled down to it not being his story to tell. Lisa and Amy were both alive and well, too, and also at the PRT HQ, when Danny remembered to ask about them.

But it _was_ enough, after spending most of the day imagining all sorts of horrible things that could have happened to Taylor, to hear at least that she was okay. Danny was so relieved that he almost didn't think anything of it when Colin asked if they could borrow Taylor's bed. The answer Danny got when he asked why was almost as bizarre as the request itself: "We don't know, but it's been suggested by a Thinker currently in our employ that your daughter will recover faster if she sleeps in it."

Danny hadn't known what to say to that except to agree and watched as two more agents, dressed in PRT fatigues, went up and then came down the stairs with Taylor's mattress and sheets. Colin assured him that the bed would be returned when Taylor was well enough to come home.

It was bizarre, but by that time, he just didn't have it in him to actually care.

Danny went to bed that night and managed to fall asleep after only an hour of fretful worrying.

The next day, he took the day off of work and made the trip to the PRT HQ, intent on visiting Taylor, only to be turned away at the front desk, told that "she wasn't able to accept visitors." Danny had been ready to raise a ruckus about it, until Colin Wallis appeared again and took him aside to explain that she was still sleeping off the fatigue from her ordeal and that they would call him when she woke up so he could come and see her.

Danny…hadn't really liked that, especially the implication that she might be asleep for _days_ , which meant that whatever had happened to her was a whole lot more serious than they'd told him it was, but he had to grudgingly admit defeat when it was laid out for him how suspicious it would be for Danny Hebert, Head of Hiring at the Dockworkers Union, to visit the PRT HQ day after day for no apparent reason.

He wanted to know what was happening, he wanted to know exactly how bad his baby girl was hurt, he wanted to know that she wasn't… _broken_ or…or _maimed_ or something equally horrible, and the worries and doubts gnawed at him. He didn't want to _wait_. He wanted to see her _now_ , so he could see for himself that she was still…all in one piece.

Perhaps sensing his desperation, Colin agreed to let him look in on her — at least, long enough to see for himself that she was okay — and led him up to the third floor and down the maze of hallways, until they came to one that was manned by two guards, agents dressed in the full PRT armor, visors and all. They nodded to Colin as he led Danny past and to the room at the end of the hallway.

What waited on the other side was…not what Danny had expected, but neither what he'd feared most. Taylor lay in her bed, set in a standard hospital frame, with an IV drip attached to one hand, and on the other side, holding Taylor's other hand, was —

"Amy?"

The girl startled, jerking her gaze over to the door.

"Mister Hebert!" she gasped. She looked to the man beside him. "Ar — _Mister Wallis_!"

For a minute, Danny stumbled over the fact that _Amy_ was allowed to visit Taylor, but not him, and a nasty suspicion curled in his stomach that maybe _she_ was the one who had dragged Taylor into the whatever-had-happened that no one had yet told him anything about.

Then, however, he remembered that she was a cape, too, Panacea, the girl who healed people. He'd never really taken the chance to find out if there were any limits, but the doubt in his heart told him that her being here _wasn't_ a good sign.

He tried to go to Taylor, to see for himself that she was alive and real and _there_ , but a solid hand on his shoulder stopped him, and his gut squirmed with worry and fear and frustration and half a dozen other things as he realized that this was, for now, as close as they were going to let him get.

He'd never thought much of anything about the PRT, before, never had a reason to care. They were just there. A part of life that he never interacted with and had no connection to, the same as most of the businesses that called downtown home. Right then, however, he hated them for keeping him from his daughter, and he hated his own powerlessness to do anything about it.

Even so, he packed all of that away as best he could; Taylor came first.

"Is Taylor okay?" he asked anxiously.

"She's…exhausted, is the best way I can put it," Amy answered. She grimaced and rubbed her eyes. "Um, everything's working okay, as far as I can tell, but she pushed herself too hard, so her body has…turned the lights off, so to speak, while she recharges."

Danny looked back at Taylor, as though to make sure she wasn't lying to him. Both hands, all her fingers, both legs, he had to assume all of her toes, no scars and no bulk from bandages that he could see, no oxygen mask to help her breathe… For all intents, aside the IV, she looked like she was just sleeping.

Something in his chest eased, like a knot loosening.

"And you, Amy?" he asked now. "Are you okay, too?"

"Um, yeah," Amy replied, sounding surprised. "Yeah, just…a little tired. I've been keeping an eye on her since last night."

"Since last night? You didn't go home?"

She winced and frowned and averted her gaze. "No. I, um, thought I could do more good here."

There was something there. Danny wasn't the most observant man in the world, but even _he_ caught the implication of something deeper and more meaningful behind it. Whatever it was… Well, she was in the PRT HQ. It was probably cape stuff that he couldn't do anything about, and they were probably handling it.

Taylor was more important, right now.

"When do you think she'll wake up?"

He wanted to be there the moment she did.

"I…don't really know," Amy hedged. "Could be today, could be tomorrow, could be sometime next week. It…really depends on her, Mister Hebert. I can't really make it happen faster."

"Mister Hebert," Colin began. The look on his face said it was time to go. Danny didn't want to, but he had enough presence of mind and he'd cooled down enough to know that the only thing raising a fuss was likely to do was get him tossed into a cell or out into the street, neither of which did anyone any good, least of all Taylor.

His little girl was a cape. For now, at least, he'd have to leave her here with the cape experts.

He turned back to the bed momentarily and addressed the tired-looking girl still sitting by Taylor's side.

"Take good care of her, Amy. Please."

"Of course, Mister Hebert." Her lips quirked into a strange expression, somewhere between a grimace and a grin. "I'm her attending physician, after all," she said wryly.

After that, Danny let himself be led out and went home, and the next several days were…better, than the first had been, but not by much. He spent what seemed like every spare moment when he wasn't at work or in bed waiting by the phone, and even at work, he caught himself glancing at the receiver, hoping, with every other thought, that the call would come in telling him that Taylor had woken up.

He must have lost ten pounds, because he didn't have any appetite, either. Everything he tried to eat was bland and tasteless in his mouth, and even leftovers of Annette's special lasagna, the one dish that had only ever failed to impress once before, in the wake of the funeral, were like ash on his tongue.

It was like that week at the beginning of January all over again, only this time, there was no Principal Blackwell for him to yell at, no police to vent to, and whenever he thought of someone to blame, it was ultimately himself, for not seeing it before, for not recognizing sooner that his daughter was now a cape.

What kind of father missed all of the signs? Even now, he couldn't think of any that pointed to it, and that only made him feel like an inattentive asshole.

Finally, _finally_ , in the early evening hours of Sunday night, the phone rang, and all he had to hear was Colin Wallis saying the words, "She's awake," before he was rushing out the front door and driving as fast as he legally could towards the PRT HQ.

If he ran a few red lights and zipped past a few stop signs along the way, well, he didn't have it in him to care too much.

Colin was waiting for him when he raced into the empty reception area and said nothing about Danny's unshaven face, red cheeks, or panting, merely told him, "This way," and led him back through the maze of color-coded hallways and up to the third floor. Two guards — Danny had no idea if they were the same two who had been guarding her room the last time, but they certainly looked the same — still stood outside in vigil.

And then, the door opened, and there she was, sitting up in her bed, propped up on a bunch of pillows. She was reading a book, so very much like her mother that it almost hurt to look at. The relief and joy that surged through him was like a balm to his soul.

"Taylor!"

He raced into the room, and this time, there was no hand on his shoulder stopping him. He didn't even notice the door clicking shut behind him.

She looked up, blinking, and then dropped her book unceremoniously on her lap.

"Dad!"

He practically threw himself at her, pulling her into a bone-crushing hug and holding tight, as though to assure himself that she was really there and this was really real and he wasn't imagining all of it. He didn't have the hands to pinch himself, but the press of the sharp edge of her glasses against his cheek worked just as well.

She slapped him on the back.

"Air, Dad!" she gasped. "I need air!"

Danny held on for a few seconds longer, then pulled back.

"I was so worried!" he said. "I came in to check on you and you weren't there, and Amy and Lisa were gone, too! I thought maybe you'd all gone for a run together, but you didn't come home, and then that you went straight to school, and then I remembered that Lisa already has her GED and…"

He was ranting, he realized, so he cut himself off.

"Don't _ever_ ," he said instead, "scare me like that again!"

"I'm sorry," she replied quietly.

"Do you have any idea what it was like?" he demanded. "I didn't know whether…whether you were okay or if you'd been kidnapped or if you were even still _alive_! And even when Mister Wallis came and said you were okay, no one would tell me _anything_ about what happened! Just that you were okay and asleep."

"…Yeah," she said, almost as though talking to herself. "I've been doing that a lot, too, haven't I? Not telling you anything. Not trusting you."

Black seemed to condense out of the air on her fingers and up her arm, stretching up her neck and under the hospital gown. For a moment, he worried, and then he realized, bewildered, that the black substance wasn't some kind of rot or skin disease, but a stretchy, skin tight fabric, appearing out of nowhere.

Stuck somewhere between unnerved and in awe, it dawned on Danny that this had something to do with her powers.

"Taylor?"

But she pressed her black clad hand gently against his chest and didn't respond. She just muttered something in a lilting language Danny didn't recognize, but thought might be Irish. In his chest, he felt a noose he hadn't even realized was there loosen and vanish from around his heart, and he took in a sharp breath at its absence.

"What was that?" he asked her.

Taylor refused to meet his eyes; instead, she reached for the pendant hanging from his neck, the one she'd given him, fingering the gold and the symbol etched into its surface. She frowned guiltily.

"I needed a way to make sure," she mumbled, "so that you'd wear it every day, no matter what."

Something cold settled into his gut.

"Taylor…"

She stopped.

"You swore an oath, and I made it binding," she said strongly. "So that every time you thought about going a day without it or just forgot, you'd feel that pang and remember you needed it. Your bulletproof vest."

He swallowed thickly around a complicated mess of emotions that swelled in his throat. Betrayal was a big one, but equally as prominent was the feeling of utter failure, that he was so unreliable as a father and had let her down so often these past few years that she hadn't trusted him with something so important.

He'd thought they were doing better. After the thing with Sophia Hess, when she ran off and came home, hugging him so tightly he'd been bruised around the middle the next day, he thought they'd been getting better. They _had_ been getting better. Taylor had started actually smiling again, and she talked about her friends, and she seemed…not over it, because how could you get over something like that in just a week or two, but certainly happier than before.

"Why… Why didn't you just trust me?"

Again, she refused to look him in the eye.

"…I wanted to," she said at length. "At first, it was…the same reason I didn't tell you about the bullying. You…you had enough to deal with, and piling me and my powers on top seemed like too much. Then, later on…you would've stopped me. From going out that first night, from going after Bakuda, from dealing with Coil."

"You're damn right, I would have!" he snapped. "Taylor, you're fifteen! You're not an adult, you shouldn't be —"

"Shouldn't I?" she challenged, finally looking up at him. "I have access to more power than most people would know what to do with. I could take on the entirety of the Brockton Bay Protectorate by myself. With the right Heroic Spirit, I could even go toe to toe with the Triumvirate. More than that, Bakuda threatened _you,_ and Coil tried to _kill_ Lisa and me. Was I supposed to just let them _do_ it?"

"Yes!" was his immediate response, and he realized immediately after saying it that it was the wrong one. "No! I don't… You could have reported it to…to Armsmaster or the PRT or the police or…"

"And then waited at home, safe and sound behind all of the defenses I put on our house, stuck there for days or weeks while people's _lives_ were in danger," she shot back. "Should I have let Coil have Lisa, torture her, kill her? Should I have let Bakuda go on her bombing spree and destroy maybe hundreds or thousands of lives? Should I have run away and let Lung burn the Docks down, looking for the Undersiders? Should I have let all those people get killed just to save my own skin?"

"You're important, too!" he told her angrily. " _God_ , Taylor, you're _my daughter_! I don't know what I would've done if you'd actually…"

 _Died_. The word wouldn't come out, as though to say it would make it something that could have actually happened.

"You're all I have left," he said instead. "I can't… If I lost you, too, I…"

Would probably load the pistol he'd bought for self-defense years ago and eat a bullet. Failing that, take a long walk off a short pier. One way or another, Danny would die if Taylor did.

"I know," she said grimly.

"Then why —"

"Because I was tired of being the victim. I was tired of always being the one in need of rescue who nobody came for. Of…of being Emma and Sophia and Madison's _punching bag_. And I have power," she added, "in spades. If I can be a hero and make a difference, shouldn't I?"

"You could have joined the Wards," he pointed out. No, that wasn't what he needed to to say, it was more like, "You _should_ have joined the Wards."

Because then, he could be sure she was safe and protected and not going off on her own to fight dangerous villains.

She grimaced. "I thought about it," she admitted. "But I was worried."

"About?"

"That it would be like high school," she told him. "Maybe not…exactly the _same_. But…" She looked him in the eye. "I'm…like _Eidolon_ , Dad. What the PRT calls a Trump. My power lets me choose an almost limitless number of different powers to use, all of them top tier powers on their own. Who wants to be on a team with a hero who can do just about anything you can do, and sometimes do it even _better_ than you can?"

Danny…didn't really have an answer for that. It was hard to imagine a comparison for what that might feel like, and the only thing he could think of was that one kid he'd vaguely known in high school who always had the answer and always finished first in every class. Danny himself hadn't particularly cared, but a number of his classmates had been resentful and — he could recognize with the power of hindsight — jealous.

"And it would have meant telling you I had powers," she added, "and that would have meant explaining when and how I'd gotten them, and that would've just… It's the same reason I didn't tell you about the bullying. Because it would have made you angry and frustrated and you would've tried and failed to do anything about it."

It took Danny a moment to put the pieces together, but when he did, an ugly suspicion curled in his gut, black and cancerous.

"Taylor," he asked, a part of him dreading the answer, "how long have you had powers?"

For a moment, she hesitated, which was, in its own way, a confirmation. Then, she looked him right in the eye and answered, "Since January third."

The Locker Incident.

He hated that he'd been right.

"And how," he asked reluctantly, "how did you get them?"

This time, she didn't hesitate.

"The same way all capes do," she told him. "I came face to face with the worst day of my life."

Then, she began to explain it to him, the concept of Trigger Events. How capes were forged in moments of high stress and trauma, how they received their powers not through some cosmic lottery, but because in a singular moment of agony, they broke. How _she_ had broken, trapped in that locker, so sure that she was going to die in there among the muck and the bugs and that no one was going to come and save her.

In that moment, Danny found in himself an all new level of hate for the three girls who had done this to his daughter.

But like some kind of dam had broken, she didn't stop. Taylor kept talking, explaining how she'd researched and experimented with her powers, how she'd been afraid of them for a while, then forced herself to face them. How she'd used one of her "heroes" — Medea, she called it — to turn their house into a fortress, how she'd used another, Aife, to learn martial arts, and another, Nimue, the Lady of the Lake, to make herself a private base out in the bay.

How she'd gone out and wound up fighting Lung. How Sophia Hess had tripped those defenses by trying to come into their house and kill her. How Bakuda had threatened them, how she'd made him the pendant to protect him, how she'd used an ancient Irish curse to make sure he always wore it.

How she'd met Amy during a bank robbery, how Coil had forced Lisa to work for him at gunpoint and used the bank robbery as a distraction to kidnap a little girl, how he'd tried to kill both Lisa and Taylor when her powers started to interfere with his.

Then, the incident that had put her in the state she was in: Coil's death and Noelle's rampage. The fighting, the clones, using mind control to stop it all, then pushing herself farther than she'd ever gone to heal a girl she'd never met before and didn't owe anything, all because she understood just how closely she could've been in the same position — overtaken by her powers, until Taylor was gone and only the Hero was left.

Somewhere along the line, he'd taken her hands in his.

There were things she was leaving out. He could tell, because she was skimming a lot of it, giving him a vague overview on some things and going into more detail on others.

"You're not telling me everything," he accused her quietly, once she was finished.

She frowned and admitted, "No."

 _Don't you trust me?_ was on the tip of his tongue.

"Why not?" he asked instead.

"Because of what comes next," she answered. "Piggot is going to try and make me join the Wards."

"And you don't want to?"

He wasn't sure what he'd do if she said no. The story she'd told of all the things that had happened since January hadn't convinced him that the Wards was any less a bad idea than it had at the start. Quite the opposite, in fact. Pride at the things she'd accomplished and the lives she'd saved did not, in any fashion, make him feel less inclined to bundle her up in bubble wrap and ship her off to the most remote, least dangerous place he could find.

But at the same time, she was trusting him, now, with all of these things. She was powerful enough — from what he was able to understand — that he had become keenly aware that the only authority he had over her was the authority she let him have.

If he tried to force her into the Wards, she might just run away from home and go live in her secret base.

He was inclined to try anyway.

"I don't know," she said uncertainly. "Maybe? After all of my mistakes and screw-ups, some part of me wants to just let someone else make the decisions. The rest of me doesn't want to give up my independence, doesn't want to _trust_ the PRT and the Protectorate."

"You don't _trust_ them?" he asked.

Immediately, he felt stupid for forgetting. _Sophia Hess_. One of Taylor's bullies had been a Ward.

"Because of Sophia, yeah," she said, as though she'd read his mind. "But also because…" She clammed up suddenly, lips pursing, and glanced around like she was expecting someone to appear out of thin air. She shook her head. "I don't want to make up my mind before I hear her out. I don't want to prejudice _you_ against the idea, either."

He squeezed her hands and had to catch himself to stop from squeezing too hard. "When you say it like that, it sounds like there's a reason I should be."

Taylor grimaced.

"Maybe," she admitted. "Probably, even. There are things that…I know now that I didn't before. Things that make it… _hard_ not to say no out of hand. About the Protectorate, about the PRT. About the people in charge of them. Knowing those things doesn't really _change_ my situation, though. Just my perspective on it."

"Then it sounds like something I need to know," he said firmly.

She frowned.

"Dad…"

"No," he told her. "You're shutting me out, again. Don't."

She bit her lip, eyes darting back and forth, as though looking for an escape. Finally, at length, she shook her head. "I can't," she said. "I… I really, really can't, Dad."

"Can't, or won't?"

Her grip on his hands tightened, and it was his turn to feel the strength of her fingers — and to realize, with no small amount of surprise, that his skinny, almost waifish daughter could likely crush them if she wasn't careful.

"Both," she admitted after a long pause.

His eyebrows rose towards his hairline.

"Both?"

"This is…" She trailed off for a moment. "The…the really big thing, Piggot will bring it up, first thing, I'm almost sure of it. It's too big for her to leave it alone, and it's something she and all of the other bigwigs are _definitely_ going to want an answer to. That's why I don't want to tell you right now," she added. "It's big enough and important enough that you might make up your mind before we even sit down with her and…whoever else she decides to bring with her. Armsmaster, definitely. Maybe Miss Militia."

"That's the thing you _won't_ tell me."

She nodded.

"And what you _can't_?"

"I…"

She chewed nervously on her bottom lip, looking down at their clasped hands, then shook her head again.

"You knowing would put you in danger. _Grave_ danger," she told him. "I think… _maybe_ , my powers might be enough of a blindspot to offer _some_ protection. But it's… If I say it or if I write it down, what it'll bring down on your head is…"

She fidgeted.

"Even the _name_ is dangerous, Dad."

"You're talking about this like it's some kind of conspiracy," he said.

Behind her glasses, her eyes grew wide and a stricken look crossed her face. It was enough to snuff out even the slightest embers of humor.

"Taylor, you can't be serious —"

"Don't," she cut across him. "Please, Dad, just _don't_. I _can't_ talk about it. The less you know, the safer you are."

"And what about you?" he snapped back. "Aren't you in _more_ danger, just because you already know? How do you know this stuff, anyway, if it's such a secret?"

She hesitated.

"Is it because of the thing you _won't_ tell me?"

"…Yes," she admitted defeatedly.

"Then won't I just find out anyway?"

"No, because one doesn't lead to the other. Please, Dad, _listen_. As long as I don't try to tell you — or anyone else — what it's about, who's in it, or what they do, we're all safe. _You're_ safe. _Possessing_ the knowledge doesn't mean anything. It's the _transmission_ of that knowledge or _acting_ on it that makes it dangerous."

"You just said the knowledge _itself_ is dangerous," he accused. "Now you're saying it's the _transmission_ that's so dangerous. It's got to be one or the other, so which is it?"

She grimaced.

"Dad…"

"Taylor, you had to put yourself into a _coma_ before I heard one _word_ about this! You were shoved into a locker filled with…with _toxic waste_ and had to be _hospitalized_ before I learned anything about the bullying! A girl _died_ on our front lawn before you even _hinted_ at Emma, the girl who was like a sister to you growing up, being involved in that mess! You've been keeping secrets from me for _I don't even know_ how long!"

Taylor cringed and slumped lower and lower in on herself with every word. Danny took a deep breath to try and rein in his temper.

"I'm tired of finding out all of these important things only _after_ you can't keep them from me anymore," he said as evenly as he could. "So if whatever-this-is is so important that it could affect something as critical to your future as whether or not you join the Wards, the _state sponsored_ junior superhero program, then I _need to know_ what it is."

A long silence stretched out between them.

"No," she murmured suddenly.

Danny stared.

"What did you just say to me?"

"No," she said again, straightening to look him in the eye. "You're asking me to trust you with something this dangerous, but it's not _about_ trust, and it's much, much bigger than just you and me. It's a secret spanning entire _worlds_ , plural, that I don't even _know_ how many lives have been lost and ruined over, and even if you ground me until I'm thirty, I'm not going to put yours at risk to tell you it now when I could do it safely in a week or two."

"I'm your father," he said with all the authority he could muster.

"And I'm your daughter and I love you," she cut across him, "so I'm asking you, please, just this one last time, to trust me. I know I've screwed up a lot and I know I've made a bunch of mistakes. I know I haven't given you any reason to. I know you have every right to refuse."

She paused, then her mouth set into a line. "I'll even swear a geis, if you want me to. Just…this one, last time, trust me, and I'll explain anything you want to know when I can be sure we're both safe."

For a long moment, Danny just stared. There was a…a kind of _weight_ to this promise that he didn't understand, although he thought he might have an inkling. A binding oath, she'd said she had put him under. One he couldn't break.

Danny wasn't angry enough — and he was certainly angry, just much more frustrated — to force his little girl to make something like that.

"The other thing," he said.

"Other thing?"

"The one you didn't want to tell me," he clarified. "Won't, you said. This big secret, this…this world-spanning conspiracy, I'll wait on that one, if you tell me about the other one. That's the deal, Taylor."

She hesitated, bit her lip, and for a long moment, mulled it over in her head. Finally, at last, she closed her eyes, sighed, and in a quiet, defeated voice, said, "Okay."

And so she did.

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

 **Where I've been...a lot of stuff happened. I won't write out the whole story here, but real life kidnapped me and locked me in the basement for a while there. Hard to write, though, when your grandfather is on the way out, you know? The wake was about a week and a half ago.**

 **Thanks to my patrons for sticking with me throughout. You guys are awesome.**

 **I summarized a lot of stuff, this chapter. If you guys want me to write it all out, say so and I shall.**

 **If you want to support me as a writer so I can pay my bills, I hav treon (p a treon . com (slash) James_D_Fawkes), and if P a treon is too long term, you could buy me a ko-fi (ko-fi . com (slash) jamesdfawkes).**

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 **As always, read, review, and enjoy.**


	59. Interlude 6-c: Fire For Effect

**Interlude 6.c: Fire For Effect**

In all her time in the Protectorate — first as a Ward, and then as a professional hero — Hannah had never before seen an entire division subjected to Master-Stranger protocols simultaneously, let alone _two_. Several people at once, sure, even the majority of a team, a couple of times. Engagements against people like Valefor or encounters with any of Heartbreaker's children tended to end with at least a few people in isolation, because human-affecting Masters were _dangerous_.

But everyone who had been at the Echidna fight had been separated and locked in for a minimum of two days, in the aftermath, to make sure that there weren't any lingering effects. _Everyone_. Including the Triumvirate.

And that, as far as Hannah knew, had _never_ happened before.

She fidgeted a little in her chair in Director Piggot's office. A glance in her direction let her know that her discomfort hadn't gone unnoticed.

The scale of the event wasn't really what bothered her, though. Of course not. Hannah had fought in Endbringer battles before, against all three of them, and the scale of the Simurgh's influence was far, far more terrifying than just a trainyard. Her ability to reach and twist even the greatest and most stalwart of heroes, often without anyone realizing anything was wrong until months, _years_ later, was far and away more frightening than something as upfront and blunt as having her body hijacked.

There hadn't even been mental coercion, either. Master-Stranger protocols were employed either way, but at no point had Hannah felt her thoughts forced into a strange or unusual shape during the event. Her body had been controlled, but her mind had remained untouched.

And yet…

The pistol holstered at her hip flickered and changed rapidly between several different shapes before she managed to clamp down on it and force it back into her standard sidearm.

And yet there was an unease coiled in her gut as she remembered back — with the vivid detail of her photographic memory — to the feeling of being a passenger in her own body, having to watch as someone else moved her arms and legs and controlled her power. Having to watch as someone else used her eyes and her fingers and her weapon to take aim at one of the three greatest heroes in the world.

Logically, Hannah knew that Taylor Hebert had to use a specific power to do that again. She knew that there would be enough warning and enough of a delay to intervene if it was even attempted. She was also a professional — she was perfectly capable of following her orders and acting in the best interests of the Protectorate and the PRT, rather than letting her feelings rule her.

That didn't stop her from feeling like she would rather be anywhere else than in a room with the girl who had almost used her to assassinate Alexandria.

"They've cleared the last checkpoint," Armsmaster rumbled suddenly. "They'll be here in ninety-three seconds."

Hannah straightened as Director Piggot nodded grimly.

"Good," she said. "It's high time I finally got some answers about what happened during that clusterfuck."

Colin — Armsmaster's — lips drew tight, just the slightest bit at the corners. Anyone who didn't know him well would have missed it.

It had been ten days since the Echidna incident. Three since Taylor Hebert — Apocrypha — had woken from her coma. The decision to give her a few days to recover after waking had been made shortly after they'd brought her in. There had been more than enough time to prepare for this meeting and come to terms with what had happened.

Hannah _still_ didn't feel ready. She wasn't sure she ever would be.

It felt like no time at all before the door of the Director's office opened to reveal Danny and Taylor Hebert, who hadn't even bothered with a token domino mask, let alone her base powered form. Behind them were the pair of troopers who had escorted them.

"Come in," said Director Piggot. It sounded more like an order than a welcome, but Piggot had always been that way.

The pair stepped into the room, and behind them, the door closed shut. Outside, the troopers had undoubtedly set up their positions on either side.

Director Piggot gestured to the pair of chairs set in front of her desk. "Take a seat."

There was a moment of hesitation, but they did. Hannah squirmed uncomfortably when Taylor took the one closest to her.

Immediately, Taylor glanced in her direction, sharp and narrowed, just like _Khepri_ , and it took everything Hannah had not to flinch, to keep her face steady and her eyes forward, instead of looking away. She was better than this, stronger than this. She had faced down plenty of things far more terrifying than one teenage girl.

Quietly, Hannah took in a deep, bracing breath and let it out slowly.

 _She's just a girl,_ Hannah told herself. It helped, a little. _You have nothing to be afraid of, here._

"Thank you for coming in today," the Director opened with.

"I wasn't under the impression I had a choice," said Taylor.

"Taylor!" her father rebuked sharply.

And that? That, right there, made it even easier. It was the sort of thing said at one point or another by every teenager Hannah had ever met.

"You're right, you didn't," Piggot replied flatly. "In fact, if some of my colleagues had had their way, you would have woken up in a cell and we'd be throwing the book at you."

Taylor's lip curled. "Tagg."

Piggot's eyes narrowed. Hannah's jaw clenched.

Except she shouldn't let her guard down, either. Because every time she thought she had a handle on what Taylor was capable of, she proved Hannah wrong.

"Because you made a big mess," the Director went on as though nothing had been said. "Big enough to land almost two whole Protectorate teams in mandatory isolation. Big enough that _Washington_ was prepared to get involved. Big enough that people were tossing around words like _Birdcage_ or _trial in absentia_ or _too dangerous to let free_. After all, Canary only Mastered her ex-boyfriend. You Mastered nearly _two dozen_ people, all of them respected heroes, and with two of the Triumvirate amongst them."

Mister Hebert straightened and his eyes narrowed into a glare. "If you think for one minute that I'm going to let you railroad —"

"Fortunately," Piggot cut across him, " _I_ am the Director of the Parahuman Response Team, East-Northeast Division, and _I_ remember what some of my colleagues like to forget: that decisions made in the moment are never perfect, and sometimes, all you've got is the least bad of a whole bunch of terrible options."

Taylor frowned, but didn't say anything.

"Make no mistake," she continued, "where that situation leaves us and what options are on the table _will_ be discussed, later on. Before that, however, there is a very important question that both I and my fellow directors need answered."

She grabbed a folder from her desk, flipped it open, then spun it around and dropped it on the far edge, in front of the Heberts.

" _This_ hero, right here." She jabbed her finger at the picture of a figure in black and gold, with panels of white armor. "Because all your other heroes? We can make some guesses. _This_ one, however, we have nothing on. _Nothing_. And for a hero who can do those sorts of things? That makes us _uncomfortable_."

As though on cue, Armsmaster stepped forward.

"We cross-referenced known designs," he rumbled almost ominously. "Clothing patterns, symbols, apparent material composition based upon visual references. No match with known historical trends or textile technology. For all intents and purposes, that hero's… _costume_ has no connection to any mythological figure on record."

"She wouldn't, would she?" muttered Taylor, sounding not at all surprised.

"Furthermore," Armsmaster went on, "the only reference to be found for 'Khepri' is of a minor god from ancient Egypt, who has no apparent connection to any form of mind control nor any of the abilities you displayed while making use of her. The only connection we have been able to draw between this mythological Khepri and the hero you used that night is the scarab symbol that appeared on her chest."

"We were prepared to write it off to some degree, since we don't know enough to say for certain that such a hero never existed, only that if they did, they aren't on record," Piggot jumped in. " _That_ was before _this_."

She jabbed her finger at her keyboard almost viciously, almost victoriously, and the nearest visible screen jumped to life to display a program depicting two images: one was of Taylor, obviously taken from one of the building's security cameras. The other was the image of "Khepri," taken by someone's helmet cam from that night. Taylor's expression carried something like determination. Khepri's was simply _intense_. Rigid and carved from stone, with eyes that seemed to stare right through you and stripped away every lie you told yourself.

What was striking, however, was the obvious similarity. The lighting differences threw it off a little, could make you think it was just coincidence, but with another stroke of the keyboard, the facial recognition software ran its comparison and swiftly returned a damning result: 98% match.

Taylor did not look surprised.

"Further comparisons were run against references photos of you using other heroes' powers," Armsmaster added.

"All of them," the Director said, "returned results between forty and sixty percent. This hero and this hero alone," she jabbed at the image, "whose origins and existence we cannot verify anywhere in recorded history, resembles you to the point that the difference is within our software's margin of error."

She leaned forward, pinning Taylor with a hard stare.

"By your own words, your power lets you take the form and abilities of legendary heroes. Explain to me, then, why a hero that _nobody_ has ever even _heard_ of has the power to Master every cape we fielded against Echidna with the singular exception of a cape known to be immune to Masters _anyway_."

"Because she doesn't exist," Taylor murmured.

"What was that?"

"Because she doesn't exist," Taylor repeated, looking directly into Piggot's eyes. "Yet."

Piggot sat back, eyebrows rising. Hannah felt her own brow furrow, because the implication of that statement was… No. That couldn't be possible, could it? She had said "myth and legend," and that sure must mean that they were all _fictional_.

"Are you trying to tell me…"

"Preposterous," Armsmaster grunted. "That first night, you said your heroes were from myth and legend. Myths and legends are story, fantasy, things born of the imagination —"

"Because it was easier than admitting the possibility that they could all be _real_." Taylor closed her eyes and took in a deep, bracing breath as her father gave her hand a comforting squeeze. Hannah felt the weight of the bombshell about to drop as though it sat on her own shoulders. "Because it was easier than admitting _she_ was real. Wouldn't you refuse to believe it, Director, if you found out that there existed the possibility that you could one day become Nilbog?"

It was targeted, intentional — and deeply troubling that she knew Director Piggot's classified military history. By the widening of her eyes, the splotches of red starting to gather in her cheeks, the Director realized it, too.

"How do you know about —"

"That's impossible," Armsmaster blurted out. "And fallacious. Even if it _were_ possible and _were_ true, one doesn't lead to the other. The reality of one's existence doesn't necessitate the reality of the others' existence as anything more than story."

"Maybe," Taylor admitted. "I don't…really know where the line is. But the reason why you couldn't find any references to Khepri is because that's not her real name."

"You don't mean to suggest that she's _you_ ," Hannah said. "Taylor, that's…"

Hard to believe. The only thing that came close to that was Scapegoat, whose powers were theorized to search possible worlds to copy undamaged body parts from. Even that was only a theory based upon power testing, and one that, as Hannah understood it, had several holes in it.

The idea that Taylor's powers — which she herself had claimed used _mythology_ — could draw from legends that didn't, or even _couldn't_ , exist… Well, even the greatest of powers had _limits_.

"Her powers did not even _resemble_ yours," Armsmaster added.

"Yes and no," Taylor said. "She's not… _me_ , she's what I could have become. A version of me that got different powers. She made choices that I…couldn't approve of."

Piggot's brow furrowed.

"She was a villain," Hannah concluded.

It fit with what she was saying, but adding a piece of logic to an absurdity did not automatically make it less absurd.

Taylor's expression twisted into a bitter, rueful smile. "Depends on who you asked and what part of her life you're talking about. Early on? Yeah. Later, she joined the Protectorate and led a team in Chicago."

"Putting aside exactly how absurd this is, let's table that discussion and assume for now that you're right and you're telling the truth." Piggot laced her fingers in front of her on her desk and leaned forward again. "From her powers, it was obvious that you could have used her and ended the Echidna Incident much, much sooner than you did. When Alexandria asked you if you had any hero who could do that, however, you said no. Why?"

Taylor grimaced and looked away, uncomfortable. The echo of Khepri's confidence and surety was now entirely absent.

"…The heroes I use affect my…how I think ," she admitted at length. "The more I draw on them, the…deeper the connection, I guess, the more… _influence_ they have."

Armsmaster grunted. "That first night. When I came upon you while you were using 'Siegfried,' you were willing to fight me."

The pieces started to come together.

"Because that's what Siegfried wanted more than anything: a good fight," she confirmed. "What happened there… That was just because I was fighting Lung, a _dragon_. That level of influence came from a superficial connection to a portion of Siegfried's legend that wasn't even _detailed_. With Khepri…"

"She's you," Hannah realized. "Assuming her Trigger Event occurred around the same time —"

"It did."

"— she was your age, she looked like you, she thought like you, she lived the same life, up until that moment. If you used her, then she could…"

 _Take you over completely_.

"Yes," Taylor said quietly. "That was why I didn't want to use her. Because it would be hard to tell where I ended and she began. She already nearly… _consumed_ me once; I didn't want to take the chance of letting her try again."

Piggot leaned further forward. "You used her _before_ the Echidna incident?"

Taylor hesitated and took a deep, bracing breath, then admitted, "During my Trigger Event. She was the first hero I ever used."

A wave of sudden horror shot through Hannah's stomach.

"Oh my god…"

It was easy to see it. Easy to imagine how it might have gone. Winslow, descending into a hellhole as a wrathful Taylor Hebert — a wrathful _Khepri_ — delirious in the wake of her Trigger and charged with all of the emotions that entailed, twisted each and every person inside into her slave and used them to violently punish her tormentors.

From there, when the PRT and Protectorate were called in…they would have had to put her down. Her and maybe even a significant number of the people under her control. If they even could have, considering what Khepri had been capable of.

"I pushed her away as soon as I realized what was happening," Taylor went on. "So that she couldn't make me into her."

Mister Hebert gave his daughter's hand a comforting squeeze.

"So, you refused to use her at first because you were afraid the lines would blur and you'd have trouble telling yourself apart from her," the Director concluded. "And in the end, you used her anyway."

"Because I didn't have any better options," Taylor replied unapologetically.

"Mastering two dozen people was your best option?"

"Because even if I had to use Khepri and stop pretending she wasn't real, I didn't want to _become_ her."

One of Piggot's eyebrows rose. "Isn't that the same thing? Using her and becoming her?"

Taylor's nostrils flared and her brow drew tight. "No," she said firmly. She almost spat the word out. "Khepri is… _was_ an ends over means person. The goal mattered more to her than the people did. Even if I have to use her power, I refuse to let myself fall into her way of thinking."

"Some people would call her way simple pragmatism."

"Would _you_?" Taylor challenged.

Piggot let out a heavy breath through her nose. "No," she said at length, "I don't suppose I would."

"You're belaboring the point, Director," her father broke in. "You asked why she was hesitant to use Khepri, and she answered, even the parts she was uncomfortable talking about. I think it's time we move on."

"You _are_ being rather…forthcoming about all of this," Hannah commented, addressing Taylor.

"Because that was one of Khepri's… It's one of _my_ biggest hangups," she admitted. "Trusting people in authority. Trusting people in _positions_ of authority."

"And I can't blame her for it," Danny Hebert added stonily. "Every authority figure in her life for the past two years has utterly failed her."

 _Including me_ , went unsaid. Hannah heard it still.

"If I'm going to learn from Khepri's mistakes, then that means staring her problems in the face, rather than running away from them. It means I have to deal with _my_ hangups, too, if I don't want to wind up repeating them."

Piggot's eyebrow rose. "And you're saying you trust me?"

"No," Taylor replied bluntly. "But of the PRT Directors I know… the Directors _Khepri_ knew, you're the one I distrust the least. Because you might be a lot of other things, but you're also _fair_."

Now, Piggot's brow reversed course and drew down together, furrowing.

"You don't just get personality from your heroes," she said, sounding somewhere between accusatory and skeptical. "You get knowledge. Even _memory_. Things they knew, things they experienced, things they took for fact."

"Yes."

"How complete?"

Taylor frowned. "…Complete enough."

"And Khepri? How much of her life do you have access to, when you used her?"

Taylor hesitated. In a way, that was an answer by itself. "…I would have done it differently, if I'd had that knowledge beforehand. Going after Coil. Dealing with the Travelers."

"Because _Khepri_ did those things, too," Armsmaster breathed.

"She did," Taylor confirmed. "She also…"

She trailed off, biting nervously at her lip.

"Taylor," her father chided gently.

Taylor sighed and sagged a little. "She also fought Lung, on her first night out, for the same reason I did. Same time, same day."

Armsmaster sucked in a breath, reeling. Hannah felt the surprise keenly, too — like a kick in the gut. The implications of that…

"She met Armsmaster, that night," Taylor went on. "She met Tattletale, eventually became friends with her. She fought Bakuda, she eventually came up against Coil and the Travelers, too. She…"

"She did everything _you've_ done," Hannah concluded.

It was _eerie_ , to think about it. To seriously consider it. If it was all true… it must have been so much worse for Taylor herself, realizing the similarities and having to wonder how much of it was coincidence, born from their circumstances, and how much of it was predetermined, immutable — _fate_.

Taylor nodded. "And some things I haven't. Mostly because when I fought those enemies, they didn't…walk away to come back and fight another day."

Piggot frowned. "You don't want to join the Wards because Khepri already did it."

"Yes," came the answer, then a furrowing of the brow. Immediately, "No. I don't…"

She paused, sighed, and tried again. "There're things I know, now. Things _Khepri_ knew. People, events, circumstances… A lot of them are important. Not just to my life, but to tons and tons of other people."

"But you don't plan on telling us," Piggot concluded.

"No. Not right now. Some of it, not ever."

Piggot's nostrils flared.

"Do you have any idea how _irresponsible_ and _selfish_ —"

"And what if I'm wrong?" Taylor rebuked. "All of those lives? They could be ruined. All of those people could be hurt or killed. A lot of Khepri's knowledge _has_ borne out, but not _all_ of it. Coil and the Travelers was a fight that happened almost two months _early_. If I'm going to start acting on the things that happened in Khepri's past, then I have to be absolutely _sure_ they can actually be used to predict the future."

"And how do you plan on verifying that?" Piggot asked. "Are you going to wait for some random event to occur as an immutable sign?"

"By predicting the one thing that everyone says is unpredictable."

They all stiffened as they followed the train of her logic and came to the only real conclusion.

"An Endbringer," Hannah whispered.

Because there was nothing else it could be. The Endbringers were the only major threat that the PRT's team of precognitive Thinkers could not, to a one, predict using their powers. Not even WEDGDG's best and brightest. The PRT and the Protectorate had been trying for _years_ to find one for whom the Endbringers weren't a gigantic blind spot — unfortunately, to no avail.

"You _know_ when the next Endbringer attack is?" Piggot demanded furiously.

She didn't answer. Danny Hebert gave her hand a squeeze.

"Taylor," he said firmly. "Tell them."

She hesitated, but after a moment, she sighed and nodded her head.

"Here," Taylor affirmed, "in about four days. It'll be Leviathan."

"And you _weren't_ going to tell us?" Piggot spat. "Do you have any idea how many _lives_ we could save if we knew when and where the next Endbringer attack was going to be? You stupid, shortsighted, little —"

"And what happens if it's _not_ here and it's _not_ Leviathan and it's _not_ four days from now?" Taylor rebuked. "What happens if you get everyone ready to fight him in Brockton Bay, only for Behemoth to show up in Yellowstone two weeks from now? You'd be out of position using strategies and equipment designed for an entirely different fight!"

"Then we adapt and deal with it!" Armsmaster said brusquely. "All Endbringer battles to date have been organized adhoc with little to nothing in the way of prior preparation! Even in the scenario where we prepared for the wrong Endbringer in the wrong place at the wrong time, we would be little worse off than we would otherwise be!"

Taylor jerked back, eyes wide and mouth open, as though this had not occurred to her, before.

Then, she fell silent, her brow furrowed, and behind her glasses, her eyes glazed over, like she was going back through a memory or trying to remember a fact she'd read, somewhere. Next to her, her father turned to her, looking a little concerned.

"Taylor?"

She snapped back, looking towards Armsmaster with something like awed understanding.

"Your algorithm," she breathed, and he flinched back, jaw working, mouth flapping, and it was his turn to look utterly stumped. "That's what changed things. _That's_ why we had forewarning for Leviathan and Behemoth."

"How did you…" he began, then stopped, like he'd realized the answer to his own question. Instead, he said, "We weren't even sure it would _work_."

"And it _still might not_ ," Piggot interrupted, although she eyed Taylor with a considering look. "Taking this all as gospel will do us no more favors than dismissing it outright."

"Director —"

"Having said that," Piggot went on, "we will treat it with all due seriousness and consider it valid information going forward. You realize, however, Taylor, that this doesn't exactly make your position _better_."

Taylor scowled. "Because it only makes me more valuable as an asset. That doesn't mean I'm going to agree to become a Ward, just because you want me even more, now."

"You don't seem to realize the position you're in. Taylor, you _Mastered_ nearly two whole Protectorate divisions, plus the Triumvirate. That's no less than twenty-five counts of Assault with a Parahuman Ability. In the process, you compromised the security of both the East-Northeast and Chicago PRT. That can be considered espionage. Your actions, whether they were intended to do so or not, directly led to at least two people losing their lives, during an unsanctioned raid on private property. That's breaking and entering and _felony murder_. You're treating this as though it's a debate about whether or not you _will_ be joining the Wards, rather than what it is: a preliminary discussion about just how long we're going to be pushing for your _probation_ to last."

"I think I understand my position just fine, Director," Taylor replied coldly. "I understand that all of those things are only valid concerns if you have a strong enough monopoly on force to actually coerce my cooperation. I can go toe to toe with the Triumvirate. You can't force me to do _anything_. I don't have either the time or the inclination to play junior hero, doing PR stunts and sitting at a console. So why exactly do I _need_ you?"

"And here you are, proving exactly _why_ you need us. If that response was supposed to sound like a mature, reasoned argument, it failed. What I just heard was the petulant response of a _teenager_ who thinks she knows best after a couple of months of experience and only three actual fights."

Taylor rallied. "Khepri —"

" _Is not here_ ," Piggot cut across her. " _You_ are. Taylor Hebert, Apocrypha. Fifteen years old. Not Khepri, hero, villain, whatever form she might take. _You_. Whatever knowledge or experience she has and whatever she accomplished is irrelevant. What matters is what _you_ know and what _you've_ done."

"So I should just ignore it?" Taylor demanded. "Go back to pretending it never happened? Forget everything I learned from her and the way she lived her life?"

"You're not using what she knew and what she learned, you're letting it _control_ you," Piggot rebutted. "This is not the time or the place to let someone else's bias determine your actions — and certainly not someone whose choices you yourself claimed to _disagree_ with."

Taylor didn't reply, immediately; she watched Piggot's face with furrowed brows, uncertain, as though only mental inertia kept her from agreeing with the Director's point outright.

"Taylor," Hannah began, trying to sound softer and more compassionate than Piggot, as she had found that sort of approach worked best with the other Wards, "Khepri is…isn't _you_. Even if she shares a name and a common history, you _aren't_ her. You stuck to the hero path from the beginning. You're _stronger_ than her. You made _better_ choices. If you let her influence your decisions now, won't that be giving _her_ more validity than you want?"

"You are your own person," Armsmaster added. "And Khepri had nothing to do with who that is."

Danny Hebert looked like he wanted to say something, but seemed to decide to hold his tongue.

And Taylor… Taylor didn't say anything, either. Her mouth moved a little, like she was chewing on her words to make them fit past her lips, but she didn't seem to have any response. She looked like she was coming up blank.

"Khepri," Danny Hebert started, "is not the only issue of concern regarding Taylor joining the Wards, Director."

Piggot folded her hands on her desk and turned to him. "Such as?"

"Sophia Hess," said Danny, and Hannah sat back, closing her eyes, as a thread of dread wormed through her gut. Dread, and not a little guilt. "I'm not entirely comfortable with the implication of your organization's competency and willingness to support my daughter, given you didn't, for nearly two years, realize Sophia Hess was carrying out a bullying campaign unchecked."

"Eight months," Armsmaster interjected — unhelpfully, Hannah thought. "Shadow Stalker only entered our custody and became a Ward in late August of last year."

Danny's lips drew further down. "My point stands."

"The Shadow Stalker situation was a series of errors and miscommunications, at least some of which was predicated upon favorable testimony given at her probationary hearing," Piggot replied. "We dropped the ball. Yes. Some of the blame lies on Principal Blackwell's shoulders, for enabling her. Some of it is ours to carry, because we _thought_ she was rehabilitating. That her psych evals were improving greatly contributed to our somewhat laxer oversight."

"If that's supposed to comfort me, Director," said Danny, "it really didn't."

"Aside from our apologies, there's not much else I can offer you, Mister Hebert."

"How about an assurance that something like that will never happen again?"

"You know as well as I do that the best I could do was say that we'd _try_ ," Piggot answered. "The officers at the PRT and the heroes working for the Protectorate are only _human_ , Mister Hebert. I can promise, however, that your daughter's situation is such that she would receive a great deal more attention and a repeat of any such event would be prevented to the best of our ability, as a Ward."

"Because she's _powerful_ ," Danny shot back.

"Because she'd be _our_ responsibility," Piggot corrected, "and we already fucked things up _once_. I can't promise you nothing bad would ever happen or that there wouldn't be bad blood between her and someone else in the Wards or Protectorate, either now or down the line. I don't have that kind of power or foresight. What I _can_ promise you is that Taylor would be a lot safer and have much better support as a Ward than she does now, and that working with those you may dislike is a skill _everyone_ should learn, including parahumans."

And Danny…subsided, not quite looking _satisfied_ , but thoughtful, like he wasn't quite sure whether or not that was a good enough answer to allay his concerns. Defused, that might be the way Hannah would put it.

"Were there any other issues you felt needed addressed?"

"Yes, actually," Taylor spoke up. "Several."

Attention turned back in her direction, and there was something…different about her. Not visually. She looked the same. It was something…else. Something in the way she held herself, in her posture, some subtle thing that Hannah couldn't quite put her finger on.

"First and foremost, Director, I would like to ask, what will happen to Tattletale?"

Piggot frowned and didn't reply immediately. "…You're using your power, aren't you?"

Hannah flinched and looked closer, but there was no sign of transformation, none of the telltale indications of her power. There wasn't even the slightest flicker of gold from her most basic Breaker ability.

"I'm doing exactly as you implied I should, Director Piggot."

"I never said for you to _run away_ and let others fight your battles," Piggot countered.

"I'm not," Taylor said firmly. "I'm relying upon the wisdom of those far older, wiser, and more experienced than me. After all, that is your primary argument for why I need the PRT and the Wards, isn't it?"

"You're letting Khepri —"

"No, because you _did_ have something of a point, Director," Taylor cut across her. Piggot's eyes went wide as her nostrils flared. "Allowing Khepri to influence my decision is not necessarily the _wrong_ choice, but she _is_ biased. Jeanne has no connection to either side; all she does is allow me to profess my concerns and present my own arguments more clearly and concisely."

Jeanne? Hannah's mind raced to identify heroes who had that name, but the only one that immediately jumped out was —

"Joan of Arc," Armsmaster muttered.

"You _say_ that… _Jeanne_ doesn't influence you, but that isn't what I'm seeing, Taylor," said Piggot, as though he hadn't spoken. "Your posture. Your diction. The way you're talking, the way you're looking me directly in the eye — the only thing that _hasn't_ changed about you is your physical appearance."

"And yet, she has no opinion for or against the PRT," Taylor rebutted. "She has no baggage regarding this situation. She has no connection to you, to anyone in this room, or to your rules and regulations. Her thoughts and feelings aren't affecting my judgement in the slightest. She is, quite literally, the definition of a neutral party."

Then, a slight smile. "In form and function, my utilizing Jeanne to help me articulate my issues is no different from Armsmaster using the lie detector he has hidden in his helmet."

Danny went rigid and immediately demanded, "What?"

Armsmaster himself stiffened, grimacing, "How…"

But once again, the question was one they already knew the answer to: Khepri. That was most likely the secret to any bit of inconvenient or privileged information she had — she had learned it from her alternate future self.

It played _merry hell_ on their infosec. Hannah dreaded all of the possible things Khepri might have known, all of the possible state secrets that might now be in her head, and what she could do with them, if something happened to convince her she _should_.

Or if a Master or Stranger got ahold of her and extracted them from her.

"You brought a _lie detector_ to this meeting?"

And Taylor just set her hand over his, a calming gesture that seemed to soothe him at least a little. "It's fine. After all, I'm sure that the results only validate everything I've said so far."

Armsmaster didn't answer her. In a way, that was an answer itself.

"In any case," she continued, "Director, I would like an answer to my question: what will you do with Tattletale? Is she to become your hostage, to coerce me into joining if I try to say no? Do you intend to threaten her with legal action, or else with conscription into the Wards herself, if I refuse to join?"

"Nothing of the sort," admitted Piggot, looking as though she'd swallowed a lemon. "Lisa Wilbourne, alias Tattletale, is currently under our protective custody while she consults with us on the uprooting of Coil's organization and the seizure of his assets. Under the understanding that she doesn't resume activity as a criminal, either independently or as a member of the villain group known as the Undersiders, we've agreed not to press charges or attempt to coerce her into joining the Wards."

"I see," said Taylor. "Thank you."

Piggot tilted her head back a little. "It was decided that it would be counterproductive towards fostering any measure of good will with _you_. I considered it not worth the effort, since the only significant crimes on her record are the bank robbery in April and killing Coil, and both of those could be argued on the basis of duress."

"As she was recruited at gunpoint and feared his reach far exceeded her capacity for escape, one would think 'duress' a bit of an understatement." Piggot's sour expression curdled even more. "Nonetheless, the sentiment is appreciated. Thank you for your understanding, Director."

The Director looked like she very much wanted to say something that was probably nasty and sarcastic, but knew better than to do so. Instead, she asked, "You said there were several concerns you needed addressed. The others?"

Taylor inclined her head. "Yes. Secondarily, the issue of my placement, were I to join the Wards."

Her father took her hand and gave it a squeeze. "Brockton Bay is home," he added. "We — neither of us wants to leave. Not permanently."

Piggot frowned and took a moment to respond.

"Our general policy," she began slowly, "is to keep members of the Wards and Protectorate in their home city, except when a specific request is made for transfer by the member — or his or her legal guardian — or the situation prohibits it. The only members subject to transfer _without_ such considerations are those for whom there was no other choice — those, in other words, who would face jail time and as such are not afforded the same protections and considerations willing applicants are given."

She took a breath.

"As you have not yet been formally charged nor are any charges pending — _yet_ ," she continued, "and as your personal identity has not been compromised such that we have reason to believe your or your father's safety is at risk, you would be placed under the authority of the East-Northeast Division. Mine."

"Can you _guarantee_ that?" Taylor asked.

Piggot straightened indignantly.

" _I_ am the highest authority in your case. If I say you're mine and you're staying here, that's all there is to it."

" _Can_ you guarantee that, however?" Taylor pressed. "Can you, in good faith, promise me that I will remain in Brockton Bay and not find myself transferred across the country? To Las Vegas or Houston or New York?"

Danny Hebert shifted. "Taylor, is this about…"

His daughter favored him with a look, little more than a pointed glance. Hannah could not have been the only one to realize there was something more to it, something unspoken that neither of them looked ready to talk about. Danny subsided, question apparently answered, and Taylor turned back to Piggot.

"Can you guarantee that I will not be transferred under the authority of Alexandria? That it will not be decided that I — and the Protectorate and PRT — would be better served under her guidance?"

Slowly, the Director's brow drew together and her lips pulled tight.

"You tell me that the PRT offers me wisdom, both from my elders and the chance to gain my own under their auspices," Taylor went on. "You tell me that I have neither the maturity nor the experience to handle my power in a way that doesn't endanger myself or others. Will you make me earn that experience under the wing of the woman who told me the only available option was to let my friends die? The self-same woman who proclaimed that heroism is about choosing to sacrifice others for the greater good?"

Piggot leaned forward, expression hard and serious. "I protect my people, even if that means from the other Directors. You want to stay here? Fine. I'll make sure it happens. You want to never work with Alexandria again? Consider it done. If you despise her that much, then as long as I have a say in it, you'll never set a single toe in Las Vegas."

But Taylor did not seem satisfied.

"I see. And if you maintain that position in the face of pressure from your peers and even your superiors, how quickly do you think you would be removed and replaced by someone more willing to compromise?"

"Even Directors can't remove other Directors that easily —"

"Can't they?" Taylor asked. "How long have you languished here, Director Piggot? How many times have you requested aid in order to root out the likes of Lung and his ABB or Kaiser and his Empire? Even Skidmark and his Merchants remain, a festering wound. How many times have those requests been turned aside, with only platitudes offered as excuse?"

Director Piggot did not look happy — neither, however, did Danny Hebert. His face, Hannah noticed, was a stark mirror of Piggot's: the deeper her frown got, so too did his own deepen.

"And now, through accident and happenstance, the Empire fractures under its own weight. Through my own effort, Lung, Bakuda, and their ABB were brought low. How easily might the other Directors force the issue, under the logic that I am simply too _big_ to be left here to help you mop up the remnants of the gangs that even now are still falling apart?"

But this was not the final blow.

"How likely, do you think," Taylor said pointedly, "that they would offer you all the resources necessary to restore this city, contingent upon relinquishing me unto their authority? And if still you were to refuse them and the resources they offered, would they not then take that as grounds to remove you, for failing in your solemn duty to protect and serve this city?"

Danny Hebert grunted softly and muttered something that sounded like, "Politics."

"Considering the circumstances, your reticence is understandable," Armsmaster cut in. "However, even if the Director could make such a guarantee on the basis of your posting, you would still be unable to avoid Alexandria's authority."

Taylor's head tilted a little to one side. "Oh?"

"The Endbringers," Hannah spoke up.

Taylor frowned and Danny grimaced.

"The Triumvirate leads the charge against them," Hannah said. "Alexandria most of all. If you intended to avoid her authority, you'd have to never participate in an Endbringer battle."

Taylor sighed. "And I would never do that," she admitted softly.

Danny Hebert startled.

"What?" he squawked. "You're _goddamn right_ , you would! If you think I'd actually let you run off into a fight with an _Endbringer_ —"

"As opposed to cowering in a shelter," Taylor shot back, "on my knees, hoping and praying that I'm not killed without even the chance of fighting back?"

"As her parent and legal guardian," Piggot cut in; her lips twitched just the slightest, like she was trying to hold in a smile, "you're well within your rights to demand that she be kept out of any Endbringer battles."

Armsmaster grimaced. "Unfeasible," he opined. "She beat Lung at the strongest he's been since the Kyushu battle and came away without a scratch. We literally can't afford to leave her on the sidelines."

Danny Hebert did not look happy to hear that.

"Even so, we would make sure she was as prepared as possible beforehand," Hannah offered as a compromise. "We most certainly wouldn't allow her to participate without a sufficient degree of training, pending a review of her limits."

Danny didn't look quite _happy_ about this, but it seemed to mollify him a little.

"So if you didn't think she was ready, you wouldn't let her attend."

"No," said Piggot. "In spite of what some of the tabloids might say, the PRT and Protectorate are not in the business of fielding child soldiers. Although Taylor's situation — and in particular, her power — is such that she may have a more active career before graduating to the Protectorate than the average Ward, the intention is and should always be that sending her into the field is an option of desperation."

"When we have no better options," Armsmaster agreed, although his expression said he didn't. "The Endbringers…often qualify."

"And it seems that without us to say no, she would attend anyway," Piggot added.

"You intend to hobble me," Taylor accused, eyes flat and face grim.

"We intend to do what we do for _all_ the Wards under our umbrella," Piggot rebutted. "Make sure you have as safe an environment as possible to learn to effectively leverage your power, such that by the time you're ready to join the Protectorate, you are as prepared to be the best hero you can be as we can possibly make you."

"A gilded cage is still a cage, Director," said Taylor, "no matter how big it is or how pretty the bars. You offer protection and room to grow, yes — but it comes part and parcel with restrictions and regulations. You would have me sharpen my sword, but never take it into battle."

"You're _fifteen_."

"I'm a world class _Trump_ ," Taylor countered. "My array of options is nearly limitless. To ask me to train and master each one is the work of a _lifetime_ , not a mere two years!"

"Then we'll work with you to fit as much as we can into those two years," replied Piggot, "and continue to work with you if you stay on with the Protectorate, afterwards."

"And how many lives would be lost, that I might save in that time?"

Piggot let out a short breath through her nostrils; someone else might have called it a snort. "And you think a single girl, even as powerful as you, is enough to make a dent in all of the thousands of people who die in this country every day?"

"Maybe not," Taylor admitted. "But isn't being a hero about trying anyway?"

"So you've decided that the best way to do that is by being independent, without support of any kind, answerable to no one?"

Taylor's lips thinned.

"No. I've decided that it's more _important_ than being answerable to anyone. Being a hero is not simply a job I would go to, day in and day out, nor is it a label, to be given and taken away simply on the say-so of a bureaucrat in his office. I refuse to be in the business of trading lives or posing for cameras. If being a Ward means being _Alexandria's_ kind of hero, then I outright refuse."

Piggot folded her hands on her desk.

"And if that means inventing your own limits to how much you can help people, rather than accepting someone else's?"

"How do you mean?"

"For all that you decry the restrictions placed on the Wards and your personal issues with Alexandria," said Piggot, "you're ignoring a lot of the things that we _do_ bring to the table. How easily can you find crime to fight, by yourself? If a confrontation were to occur between the Empire and the Protectorate, how quickly could you reach it? Would you even know it was happening?"

Taylor didn't answer, lips beginning to purse.

"What about numbers?" Piggot went on. "Your…Hundred-Faced Hassan, was it? If all you had to worry about was a bunch of unpowered people, I'm sure that would be enough. But if you were up against the entirety of the Empire's roster of capes or, say, the Teeth up in Boston, would it be so easy to handle all of them with a single one of your heroes, all at once? Wouldn't it be better to have someone — a team — to handle the others, while you fought the biggest threat?"

She leaned forward.

"That, above all, it what the Wards, and later the Protectorate, can offer you. Support. The network you need to know where and when you're needed, the teammates who can watch your back while you fight Hookwolf or the Butcher, and the expertise to help you find the limits of your powers. And if, later on, you decide that it isn't working out, you don't _have_ to stay."

"You're saying you wouldn't force me to stay on if I didn't want to," Taylor clarified.

"I'm saying we'd do our best to accommodate you, within reason, if there was a concern you needed addressed," said Piggot. "And if you were still unsatisfied? Yes. Neither the Protectorate nor the Wards is meant to be a lifelong obligation. Like any other job, you _do_ have the option to quit."

"No strings attached?" Danny asked.

"You would likely be asked to sign a non-disclosure agreement regarding the identities of your teammates," she replied. "But otherwise, no. The PRT is an oversight program, not the CIA or NSA. We don't put anything into your permanent record that would in anyway hamper your life or career, and you aren't required to stay in a governmental position afterwards."

Taylor still didn't look quite convinced.

Danny turned to her. "I think it's a good idea."

Her head whirled around to him so fast Hannah thought she might have heard her neck crack. "What?"

"I'm not saying I don't have reservations." Here, he looked back to Piggot. "And I'm pulling the plug on it the minute I hear the first thing about something like Sophia Hess happening again."

"Reasonable," Piggot allowed.

"But," he said, "I'm willing to give it a shot, if it means you're safer and you have people to help you in…in the ways that I can't. I…can't be part of your life as a hero, Taylor. The Wards _can_."

"That doesn't mean they'll be a _good_ part," she argued.

"It doesn't mean they'll be a _bad_ part, either," he rebutted. "So… All I'm asking, is… give it a try? Give them a chance? For me?"

Taylor hesitated.

"And if you're miserable and it's horrible and it doesn't go right, I won't say anything if you want to quit. You can even tell me you told me so."

For several seconds, she didn't reply. The set of her brow and her lips told the story of her thoughts, how she was weighing what had been said and her father's words. Hannah waited, unsure it would be enough, unsure that Danny Hebert had managed to reach his daughter and convince her as the Director had not.

At length, she turned to Piggot. "I have conditions."

Piggot smiled. "Then let's discuss them."

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

 **This is not the end. This was merely the path that made the most sense with the direction of the story - because when you look at it, the only way Taylor was going to avoid the Wards was if she was, from the word go, adamantly against joining, in which case this chapter had little to no meaning. Establishing her as unsure in the previous chapters meant that, in the end, Piggot would be too convincing. Taylor and Jeanne _did_ manage to get a few punches in first, though. Man, those lines were fun to write. Jeanne is friggin' _awesome_ , and too few Nasu stories feature her at her best.**

 **Where we go from here, however, is not as certain as it might seem. Depending on how far past Leviathan the story winds up going, there might yet be fruit to bear from this plotline.**

 **Continuing with what seems to have been the running theme of this arc, this was hell to write. It languished for quite a while, and I had a lot of trouble making it work at all. I _still_ feel like there are parts that need _more_ \- more meat, more dialogue, more narration. But this is already 8k and it already took me long enough to get it written, so I'm not going to stretch it out any further.**

 **If you want to support me as a writer so I can pay my bills, I'm on P A treon (p a treon . com (slash) James_D_Fawkes), and if P a treon is too long term, you could buy me a ko-fi (ko-fi . com (slash) jamesdfawkes).**

 **Or if you want to commission something from me, check out my Deviant Art page to see my rates.**

 **As always, read, review, and enjoy.**


	60. Pendulum 0-0

BIG Trigger Warning, here. This chapter is arguably darker than the Coil interlude. There's depressive thoughts, hints of suicidal ideation, and biggest of all, some _serious_ horror movie stuff. Like, if you have some kind of bug phobia? This should probably be a hard pass, for you. I ran this past Higure, and he says he thinks it's okay, but that I ran it by him should tell you something. Because I think this is the Worm-iest chapter in Essence.

 **Pendulum 0.0**

 **-02:47:03**

The moment I had my breath back, I screamed. I banged against the walls of my prison, and when I ran out of breath, I drew in more of the fetid, suffocating air, with all the stench of death and decay and the acidic, pungent odor of my own vomit, and I kept screaming.

"Let me out!"

I voiced it strongly, furiously, with perhaps a tinge of the panic inside my chest, at first. I commanded it. I demanded it. There was no asking or begging. There was no whimpering, and I hadn't started crying, yet.

"LET ME OUT!"

I just shouted it as loudly as I could, banging my fists and my feet against the metal walls more to make noise than in any real attempt at escape.

I didn't _really_ believe they would leave me in there. I thought it was one of their meaner pranks, and it was definitely the worst one they'd ever pulled, but I fully expected my trio of tormentors to open the door after a few minutes of screaming and pounding, giggling and laughing at me for being so pathetic. They'd probably each offer a sneering, condescending remark about how weak I was or how clumsy I must be to have fallen into my locker and get locked inside.

At the very least, in some withered, malnourished hopeful part that I had buried months ago, I thought that _someone_ would surely hear me, _someone_ would come and let me out of my locker. Whether they were an E88 skinhead, one of the ABB's scouts, or even a strung out Merchant, it didn't matter. Someone, I was sure, would come.

Maybe a teacher, and surely there was no way they could ignore _this_.

But the minutes passed, and the giggles and laughter of Emma and her two sycophants eventually disappeared. It was when the late bell rang and classes started and silence replaced all the noise from outside that it started to sink in: they were going to leave me in here. No one was coming to rescue me. No one was going to hear my screams and come let me out. No one was going to save me.

This was not one of the Trio's thousand injustices. This was not one of their mean-spirited pranks, like stealing my homework or throwing my clothes into the shower with me after Phys Ed. This was cruelty of a scale and magnitude that they had never tried before.

"HEY!"

I banged against the walls of the locker with my fists and my feet until they tingled and throbbed and went almost numb.

"LET ME OUT!"

But the only answer was my echo, bouncing off the inside of my metal prison. From the world beyond, the halls of Winslow High School, there was only empty silence.

I squirmed, trying to turn myself around so that I could at least face the door, rather than looking at the looming darkness of the metal back, but the locker was cramped and small. It was already some kind of miracle — or rather, the worst kind of bad luck — that I fit inside of it at all; it was not, it became apparent to me, big enough that I could turn myself around. I banged my elbow rather hard just trying it.

Eventually, all I could do was settle back as I was and attempt to reach some level of "comfortable." It…never really happened. I was boxed in on all sides, with one arm bent up towards my face and the other hanging down by my waist. My knees were bent, and if I tried to straighten, I hit my head on the top of the locker.

What made it all worse was that I wasn't in there by myself. The stench of rot and vomit was overpowering, even if it got just a little more bearable and a little less offensive after a few minutes. The… _shit_ at the bottom squished beneath my feet, and things that didn't bear thinking about seeped into my shoes and between my toes, and _oh god, I'll never be clean again._

I tried to ignore it. I tried to pretend it wasn't happening and that I couldn't feel any of it. That the squish under my feet was mud and the liquid seeping into my shoes was just water. That I wasn't sharing that locker with…with who knew what kind of germs and biohazards and STDs and _fuck, don't think about it._

But it wasn't that easy. Long moments passed with nothing else to focus on and only the sound of my own breathing keeping me company. Even the slightest of fidgets banged against the wall and sent echoes reverberating through the tiny space, but those were tiny, short distractions. They lasted only a handful of seconds at best.

I…didn't know how much time passed. It felt like days, but I thought it must have been only a few minutes. It was…the heat of my breath filling the air and the adrenaline shooting through my veins, they must have made it seem like longer, I told myself. I wasn't in there that long. Someone would come and let me out, soon.

Sweat began to trickle down the back of my neck, like a long finger trailing delicately down my spine. The air grew steadily warmer and heavier around me, like a summer day on the beach just before a big storm. My head, with it, grew foggier and my thoughts became sluggish and slow. It was like trying to swim through molasses, like the harder I fought it, the slower I went.

I could almost feel it as it happened, like I was watching the gears in my head grind to a steady halt from outside. The hotter the inside of that locker got, the more I felt my energy and clarity evaporating out of my ears like steam. Already blinded in the dark, my eyelids got heavier and started to droop, even as my breaths got longer and deeper.

 _The adrenaline must be wearing off_.

The thought came to me as though across a great distance, and I blinked against the blackness of the locker. Adrenaline? Oh. That stuff that…gave you energy whenever you were…scared? Or… Or excited? Right. Right… And… What did that have to do with anything, again?

I was locked into a locker. That's what.

Right. Right. And I was here because…

A shrill sound broke through the malaise, a bell. A ringing bell. The bell signaled the end of first period.

 _The bell that means I've been in here for over an hour, already._

I took a sharp breath in through my nose and shot up as straight as I could on reflex, banging my head off the top of the locker and my knee off the wall. Shoots of pain lanced across my scalp and my kneecap, novas of fire that erupted across my skin and through my bones, and I let out a hiss through my teeth as I reached up with my bent arm to feel the top of me head.

My fingers came away wet and sticky. Blood? Sweat? In the dark, I couldn't tell.

Forget about it, I told myself. Forget about it. That was the bell for first period. That means that…those voices outside are _real_. You can get out of here.

I tried to speak, but my mouth was dry and my lips were chapped, so I had to wet it. I pounded against the door as hard as I could and against the wall with my fist.

"H-hey!"

There was no answer.

"S-someone let me out of here!"

But no one came. No one appeared to rescue me. I was left alone, to rot, inside that locker. Abandoned. Given no more care or consideration than the garbage at my feet. There wasn't even a pause in any of the voices outside, a single moment where someone asked his friend if he'd heard that.

I tried again.

"H-hey! Someone! Let me out! Let me OUT!"

And still, no one came. The cacophony of voices drifted away and became distant.

"A-anyone?"

I was left alone.

Soon enough, the late bell rang, and all of the voices outside were gone, having made their way to their next class.

That was when it really started to sink in. No one was going to come and rescue me. No one was going to come and let me out. Not Emma, not Sophia, not Madison or any of their other hangers-on. Not some ganger who had a moment of conscience. Not a teacher, whose job it was to help their students.

No one. Not one single person.

Not even Dad.

I was alone.

Unwanted, unloved, and so inconsequential and despised that no one would even acknowledge I was stuck in here.

An awful, gnawing feeling churned in my gut, and a terrible emptiness opened in my chest. It was like I was drowning and suffocating and being strangled, all at once, and the hot, rotten air of the Locker only made it worse.

Why? What had I done to deserve this? What insult could I possibly have committed to have invited something like this upon myself? What god had I spit in the face of? What cruelty had I done to some poor, unfortunate person that this was the punishment? Who had I hurt that _this_ could be considered justice?

Was it because of Mom? Was I not allowed to pull myself back together and find _some_ kind of happiness, with her gone? I'd been getting better. I'd been figuring out how to smile again. I'd been moving on, even if I never forgot. Was I not supposed to?

"Why?" I sobbed. Trails of liquid fire flowed from my eyes and down my cheeks, hot even in the sweltering locker. "Why me? What did I do wrong? What did I do, Emma?"

What had I done, to make her hate me so much? What had I done?

Was I not supposed to go to summer camp? Was that what made her so mad at me? She'd seemed so happy for me, before I left. She'd been smiling, talking about how good it would be for me to get away for a while. Let me recharge, escape from some of the memories. She'd all but pushed me out the front door.

Was I supposed to have stayed home? I would have, if she'd asked me to. I would have stayed. Did she want me to have stayed? I would have. I really would have.

I gasped in a breath, but the air was thick and soupy and only served to make my head feel even foggier and heavier.

How long were they going to leave me in here? How long had I already been in here? I couldn't tell, anymore. Had another bell rung, yet? Had another period passed while I was stuck in this festering pit?

I didn't know. Time was…weird. Like an hour passed between blinks, and a second between eternity. The only light I had filtered through the narrow slats on the front of the door, and it was barely enough for me to make out the vaguest of outlines of my nose. I didn't know whether those moments when it disappeared were people passing in front of my locker or me just forgetting I'd closed my eyes.

Had it been an hour? A day? A week? I didn't know. I didn't know, anymore.

 _Skrch_

I froze, straining my ears.

"H-hello?" I tried. "Is someone there?"

No answer.

 _Tchtchtchtchtch_

"A-anyone?"

Nothing.

I held my breath.

But there were no voices, no footsteps, just me, alone in that locker, blood pounding in my ears.

Maybe I was just hearing things. Yeah, that had to be it. I was just…just imagining it. If it was anything at all, it was just the muck under my feet shifting around. It was just —

 _Tchtchtchtchtch_

Something… _Something just touched my leg_.

 _Calm down_ , I tried to tell myself over the thudding of my heart. _It's just…just the water. Th-the muddy water. That's all it was._

I was alone in here, after all. So it was just… It was that _stuff_ under my feet. It was piled high enough to reach my knees, so it had always been a matter of time until it seeped through my jeans and started running down my —

 _Tchtchtchtchtch_

Up my stomach, now — I brushed at the spot, but there was nothing there. Nervously, I felt around under my hoodie and t-shirt, dragging my palm and fingers up and over my ribs, but I found nothing.

 _You're just imagining it_ , I thought. _There's nothing there. You're just imagining it._

I was alone. There wasn't anything in here with me. I was alone. My mind was just playing tricks on me.

 _Tchtchtchtchtch_

A light touch ghosted along my shoulder, traveling up my arm, and I swatted at it, brushing my hand long my tingling skin, but again, there was nothing. Nothing at all.

 _It's all in your head_.

From above me, something small drifted down, attached to a thin, gossamer strand. It came to a stop in front of my face and turned to look at me.

I froze, peering into the four sets of beady black eyes, as the body slowly, slowly spun around to reveal the vivid red hourglass imprinted upon its abdomen.

I screamed, and the Black Widow jumped, landing on my nose and skittering with eight, hairy legs up my face and into my hair. I bucked backwards on reflex, slamming my spine against the unyielding locker door, and reached frantically up to swat at it — but my hands were pinned, and one scrapped against the ceiling and the other banged against the wall, and I felt it, I _felt_ the Black Widow crawl down my neck and the back of my shirt, felt its tiny legs dance along my spine as it went —

And under my feet, around my legs, the pile of trash came to life and surged upwards, and cockroaches and spiders and fleas and all sorts of things came crawling out, as though the spider was the signal, skittering up my legs and my chest and neck and into my eyes and my mouth and my nose and down my throat and —

And I screamed, I tried to scream around the stream of bugs that clogged my throat and filled my mouth, I tried to swat at the endless sea of them moving all along my body, but there were too many, and I was drowning under a thousand tiny bodies, and I could feel them, biting and chewing and feasting on every inch of skin they could, on my stomach and my lungs and my eyes and my brain, and I jerked, slamming my head against the locker ceiling so hard that stars erupted behind my eyelids.

And the bugs were gone. My head felt like someone had cracked it open, but the bugs were gone, and it felt at once both stuffy and heavy and light and weightless, like it was filled with cotton, but the bugs were gone.

I sobbed, simultaneously relieved and terrified. It wasn't real. The bugs were gone. None of it was real. The bugs were gone.

"Just let me out," I whimpered. "Please? Someone? Let me out of here?"

Emma's face loomed out of the dark, and she smiled at me with a shark-toothed grin through a pale, lipless mouth. Her nose was nothing but a pair of slits carved into the middle of her face. "Look at how pathetic she is! Are you gonna cry, Taylor? Cry for mommy? Oh, but mommy's not here, anymore! Boo-hoo-hoo!"

Sophia's face appeared next to her, leaking wispy black smoke from every orifice, and she leered at me with eyes that glowed a bright, evil red. "I bet she is. Look at her! She's such a weakling that she even got locked inside her own locker! She can't even get herself out!"

"No," I mumbled in her direction, "no, _you_ pushed me in!"

But Sophia just laughed, spewing more smoke from between her teeth.

"It's her own fault," said Madison with a smile that literally split her face in half. "None of this would've happened if she wasn't such a loser!"

"So pathetic!"

"Such a weakling!"

"She should feel right at home in all of that garbage!"

The three of them laughed together, chanting, "Loser! Loser! Loser!"

"…'m not a loser," I denied weakly.

My tormentors just kept laughing, and even as they melted back into the darkness of the locker, it echoed back at me until it was all I could hear. It drowned out the sound of my own breathing and the thudding of my own heart.

"…'m not a loser. 'm not. 'M…"

Except maybe I was. I had no friends. I had no one I talked to at school, if I could help it. No teachers sided with me. None of my classmates sided with me. Everything that happened, I got blamed for, even when I was the victim. My dad couldn't even look at me, most days, let alone string together more than a sentence or two to my face.

"'m not a loser…"

But even I didn't really believe it, anymore. Why else would I be so alone and so uncared for? Maybe I should just give up. Maybe I should just stop fighting it. I was worthless. I didn't mean anything. I'd never amount to anything at all. Maybe I should just…

My head tilted forward to press against the locker wall and I sagged. In my chest, I felt the last ember of hope, the last shred of it I'd been protecting for a year and a half, wither, flicker, and —

I fell, out and through the locker and away from my body, up and up and up, until the Earth was just a little speck beneath me. Some force carried me through the black of space, and I was swept along through a vast canal of stars, passing each by without stopping. In an instant, in an eternity, I stood before vast golden gates, grand and majestic and otherworldly, and with a lurch of fear, an inexplicable certainty told me that the place beyond was a place that only the dead could enter.

I was dying, I realized. The cold jolt of terror tore through the haze that had been suffocating my head, and I took a sharp breath of the Locker's fetid, rotting air. The stench of death and decay tried to smother me, tried to choke me back into that slow, almost peaceful end, consumed by the heat and the rot, but all it did was send another shock of _fear_ directly into my brain.

"N-no," I said hoarsely, my voice barely above a whisper. My throat throbbed and ached and it felt like I was shredding it with knives, but that was so unimportant that I barely even noticed. "I-I don't w-want to d-die…"

No one answered me. The words weren't even loud enough to echo off the walls of the Locker. Even Emma and Sophia made no appearance, not even to mock me again. There was only silence and the thundering of my own heart.

"P-please…"

 _CLANG. CLANG._ The sound of massive locks loosening rang out, rippling through my chest and my ears and vibrating every part of me. A gaping chasm formed inside me, spreading an empty coldness that swallowed up my lungs and my stomach and stretched towards my brain.

 _No, no, I don't want to die!_

But I couldn't move. I was trapped, arms pinned, legs mired in the muck, and I had no strength left to try and break free.

It took everything I had just to speak.

"S-someone… Anyone… I…I don't c-care who…"

ABB, E88, Merchant, teacher, Dad, the Trio themselves, even the Slaughterhouse Nine — at that point, it didn't matter to me who it was, as long as there was _someone_. Someone who would hear me, someone who wouldn't ignore me, who wouldn't laugh and walk away. Someone. _Anyone_.

The gates started to creak open, as though to accept my soul into the vastness that lay beyond.

 _No, no, go away, don't take me, yet! I'm not ready!_

I didn't want to die. Even if it meant I could see Mom again, I wasn't ready to give up and let go. I still had a life, I just had to wait out high school. There were still things I wanted to do, a life I wanted to live. Dad was still there, and I couldn't leave him alone. Mom had already left us, and he'd broken down afterwards, so if I died, too, then…

"S-save me."

 _Please. Please. Don't leave me here to die. Don't leave me here all alone to die in the muck and the grime. Don't let me die in this locker._

"I-I'll…do anything. Anything you want…everything I am… I-it's all yours."

 _Whatever you want, I'll give it to you. My body, my soul, whatever you want me to give, you can have it. I don't care._

"Just please…save me… Save me…"

And through the gap appeared a golden beetle, shining with an inner light. It fluttered across the distance, soundless, and when it reached me, it landed on my chest, then sank through the cloth and melted into me.

And then the chasm in my chest was filled, suddenly and completely, and the grand and powerful _thing_ that was filling it started to spill over into the rest of me. My body started to twist and morph, bones cracking and creaking as they stretched, muscles rippling as they got stronger and sturdier, bust growing, shoulders broadening, hair lengthening, every part of me taking _its_ shape. Even my clothes were changing around me in the cramped space of the Locker.

 _Wh-what's happening?_ I thought frantically. _W-what's going on? What are you doing to me!?_

And then, _it_ reached my brain, and I felt _her_. She was like an ocean, vast and powerful, as constant as the tide, as inexorable as a glacier. I was an ant before her, so small and so weak and completely unable to stop her.

 _Khepri,_ Hero of the Dawn. _Taylor Hebert_. A version of myself who had sacrificed everything to save everything. She'd been willing to throw away her own sanity, cutting off pieces of herself one by one, and she was willing to sacrifice whoever and whatever was necessary — friend or foe, comrade or enemy, even innocent bystanders — in order to save the world.

Including _me_.

My body didn't matter to her. My mind didn't matter to her. _I_ didn't matter to her.

I was just a meat puppet. A tool, just like anything else she used, any _one_ else. Something to be consumed, then discarded, as long as it brought her closer to her goal. A single, tiny bug, just another part of her swarm.

Already, I could feel her creeping in along the edges, twisting my thoughts and my memories, molding me into her shape and making me _think_ like her, and when she was done…

And when she was done, there'd be nothing left of me. No more Taylor Hebert. Just a husk that called itself Khepri.

True, existential _terror_ , cold and powerful as a hammer to my ribs, shot through my chest and brain, and I banged my fists and my elbows and my feet against the confines of my prison with renewed strength and energy.

But there was no place to run, no way to escape. I was trapped — inside the Locker with the trash, and inside my own head with _her_. There was only one thing I could do.

I screamed.

Even though my throat was already raw, even though all of my energy had already dwindled away, even though there wasn't anything left for me to scream _with_ , I screamed, long and loud and hard, and the metal walls of the Locker bounced it back at me. Panicked, thrashing, knowing that I was about to be consumed, screaming was the only thing left to me.

 _NO!_ The word never made it out of my throat, but in my mind, it resounded. _NO!_ _I'M NOT YOU! I'M NOT YOU!_

I reached deep down for the strength I didn't have, grabbed at the energy that was already gone, and with everything I had left, I _rejected_ Khepri and everything she was, everything she stood for, everything that she had ever done and every compromise she had ever made for some twisted idea of the greater good.

I wasn't her. I _wasn't her_. I was Taylor. _Taylor_. Not Khepri. _Never_ Khepri.

And as I pushed her away, the power that filled up my insides ripped itself out of my chest, and I fell back from those golden gates and through the canal of stars, crossing some vast and unknowable distance at speed, until the stars around me pulled away and shrank, smaller and smaller, into a tiny dot off on the horizon.

All around me, there was only darkness, an empty void, and as it swallowed me up, the last dregs of my energy slipped away, and so did I.

 **+00:01:17**

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

 **So. Yeah. This has been sitting for a while, waiting until the reveal.** **A Locker Scene. Like every other Worm fic doesn't have one of those, you know? Mostly, they kind of fall flat. YMMV on whether this one did or not.**

 **I think _now_ we're officially past the darkest parts of the story, though.**

 **In case it isn't obvious, now, the timer at the top of each Pendulum chapter is counting up from the Locker.**

 **If you want to support me as a writer so I can pay my bills, I have a (p) a treon (p a treon . com (slash) James_D_Fawkes), and if P a treon is too long term, you could buy me a ko-fi (ko-fi . com (slash) jamesdfawkes).**

 **Or if you want to commission something from me, check out my Deviant Art page to see my rates.**

 **As always, read, review, and enjoy.**


	61. Essential Material

**Aífe [Heroic Spirit]  
Queen of Warriors**

A warrior queen from Celtic mythology, the Ulster cycle. A queen of fighters surpassing even her sister and rival, Scáthach, a prodigy of the martial arts that can be said to have been the greatest of her era. One of the two who might have held back the countless ghosts of the Land of Shadows — if fate had had such in store.

However, her talent with the mystic arts was not as developed as that of Scáthach. As a specialist who achieved mastery of the Celtic arms, her lesser skill with magecraft resulted in her sister being chosen for the role for which both had been raised.

Proud and unbowed.

An unstained ruler, tainted by a single defeat.

Possessing a natural talent for leadership, she could nurture skill in nearly any student and turn even the mediocre into heroes of the highest class. While she cannot see through the character and traits of others, rather, she has an intuitive grasp of "limitations" that allows her to bring out the abilities of those she tutors.

Having her legend cut short by Cúchulainn, it might be said that she was fortunate not to share her sister's fate, and she died as a normal woman after many great battles. If there is a wish she has for the Holy Grail, it would be, "To teach a student who can surpass Cúchulainn." For a woman and a warrior who has fulfilled nearly all other dreams, this one last regret remains.

 **Aite Láechrad [Noble Phantasm]  
Mentoring Great Heroes**

The crystallization of Aífe the teacher, who mentored heroes in Celtic myth. The crystallization of her legend of teaching warriors the arts of combat.

Sublimated into this Noble Phantasm, it is the ability to create "heroes" that are on the level of Servants and endow them with combat related skills. Any skill possessed by a hero, even some that are unique, can be learned and taught by Aífe.

However, the difficulty of learning and the time required to do so will be increased as the compatibility of either Aífe or her student with the skill decreases. Furthermore, the further from her sphere of influence the skill originates, the more time and effort is required to acquire it.

Normally, the maximum effective result would be the rank of A. However, if it is a skill originating in Ireland or Scotland, then it may be mastered to the rank of A++, no matter the era of its conception.

Aífe cannot create a hero more powerful than herself.

 **Amulet of Arrow Protection [Term]**

A golden amulet. A simple charm made of gold, lacking in any complex designs or ostentatious ornamentation. Small and innocuous, it could be mistaken for an ordinary piece of jewelry.

In spite of its unassuming appearance, however, it is a powerful magical artifact, endowing the wearer with an absolute protection against arrows, projectile weapons. Even if it comes from an unexpected angle, even if it is launched from afar, even if it is fired with expert precision or high attack power, if it is a weapon that attacks by traveling through the air to strike the target, this amulet will protect its wearer without fail.

However, if it is something like a missile that explodes on impact or otherwise a weapon with a wide-range, area of effect type of attack, then this amulet is useless. Because it is designed to protect a single target from ranged attacks, fundamentally, the attacks it protects from are those designed to defeat a single target. Anything that is meant to deal damage over a broad area will naturally surpass it.

Of note, Taylor Hebert's version of this amulet is more ornamented than the other versions. Though it naturally performs better, this is a result of the greater time and effort invested in its creation, not the quality of its appearance.

 **Arachne [Heroic Spirit]  
Orb-Weaving Seamstress**

A legendary seamstress from Greek mythology. A weaver of exceptional talent and skill, a centennial genius who cannot be surpassed if the competition is the weaving of cloth and fabric.

Born to a famous dyer, she began weaving almost from infancy. Possessing great ability and quickly surpassing those many times her senior, by the time she was an adult, she could rightly claim to be the best weaver in all of the world.

However, her boasts attracted the attention of Athena, the Goddess of Weaving, who challenged Arachne to a contest to determine who was truly the better weaver between them. A rigged contest that Athena was supposed to win with ease, a method of humbling Arachne's hubris, however, Arachne's work was far superior to Athena's and the contest ended in an unexpected way.

At the end, Athena could not accept defeat at Arachne's hands, tore up the beautiful tapestry Arachne had woven depicting the cruelty and abuses of the gods, and cursed her to take the form of a spider and spend the rest of her days weaving.

 **Argaleiós Arákhnēs [Noble Phantasm]  
Weaving Divine Raiments**

The signature Noble Phantasm of the legendary Greek woman, Arachne. The Noble Phantasm embodying her sublime, unmatched skills as a seamstress, combined with the legend of weaving story and myth into her fabrics.

Possessing no offensive attributes, it is a Noble Phantasm that cannot be used to attack others or cause them direct harm. A purely support type.

A passive kind of Noble Phantasm, it transforms the material Arachne works with as she weaves it, adding strength and mystery with every weave and knit. Even ordinary cloth becomes extraordinary when she handles it, gaining supernatural quality and beauty that surpasses the works even of the Goddess of Weaving, Athena.

Furthermore, it becomes possible to utterly transform the material itself into another substance. It is even possible to turn common cotton strands into wool from divine sheep or tail hairs from a unicorn, or even into materials harvested from long gone magical beasts from ancient mythology. As long as it is "a material that can be woven," it can even become something with a grand and storied history stretching back thousands of years.

This efficacy of this Noble Phantasm increases when Arákhnē Metamórphōsis is active. However, simultaneously, the only thing which can be produced is silk, even if it is of the highest quality.

 **Blood-Stained Queen [Skill]**

A unique skill derived from Aífe's dual nature as both a queen (leader of armies, ruler of a nation) and a great warrior. It is a representation of her ability to both lead her army against another and to fight duels against other powerful foes one-on-one.

Whereas certain other queens would not lower themselves to engage in direct combat and dirty their hands or else do not possess the mental capability to switch from regal queen to bloodthirsty warrior, Aífe considers one a mere extension of the other and acts with elegant brutality in all aspects.

Thus is the nature of a queen who rules the battlefield and her kingdom with the same ruthless smile.

Whenever she is simply one combatant amongst many, or when her opponents are a group or an army, the effectiveness of her own Anti-Army, Anti-Fortress type Noble Phantasms is increased, allowing her to show an increased performance befitting a queen of her stature. Similarly, whenever she is engaged in single combat against one foe, all of her abilities related to battle are significantly boosted, however, as a result, the effectiveness of all other types of Noble Phantasm except Anti-Unit are drastically reduced.

For any other Heroic Spirit, such a limitation might indeed be a great burden. However, for Aífe, it is only a matter of course. It is only natural that a duel between two warriors should be limited only to Noble Phantasms designed for use against a single target, after all.

 **Cáe Cless [Skill]**

The Path of Feats, the lost martial arts of the ancient Celts of Ireland and Scotland. It's an ancient art of fighting which developed independently of the martial arts of the Far East, a skill which focused on the development of physical prowess rather than the objective of becoming one with the universe. A purely combat art, designed solely for the purposes of war and eschewing concerns unnecessary to the field of battle.

These are the heroic feats of skill taught to the warriors of the ancient Celtic world, those exalted heroes such as Cúchulainn, Ferdiad, and the Knights of the Red Branch, present in the Ulster cycle of Irish mythology. The talented masters who tutored these warriors in this art were Scáthach and Aífe.

The number of feats is difficult to measure. The exact count varies depending upon the source. However, it can be certain that there were at least twenty-one, and though few ever mastered them all, most warriors were expected to learn and master a certain number before they were considered truly ready for battle.

Those who learned them all wielded their bodies as weapons.

At the highest levels, the fabric of space and time can be warped on a local level.

This great art was lost to the ages many centuries ago. However, some degree of the feats belonging to it survived to the modern day as sports, although the degree of proficiency is paltry by comparison.

 **Cast Me Away [Noble Phantasm]  
Tithing to the Lake Goddess**

One of Nimue's two most characteristic Noble Phantasms. An innate ability representing the legend of receiving Excalibur upon King Arthur's death, bolstered by the practice of the ancient Celts of casting trinkets and armaments into sacred bodies of water as a form of sacrifice to life-sustaining lake and river goddesses.

Embodying just such a practice, sublimated from the story of Sir Bedivere casting Excalibur back into the lake, this Noble Phantasm is the ability of Nimue that allows her to take ownership of any item, even the Noble Phantasms of other Heroic Spirits, that falls into a body of water within the area established as her territory.

However, unlike a certain guardian, whose abilities also allow him to reproduce the skill with which a Noble Phantasm was wielded, this Noble Phantasm only bestows the title of "owner" upon Nimue. No additional skill in its use is given to her as such, and so she is limited to her own proficiencies. Furthermore, the size of the body of water must classify as a pond, at minimum, and therefore, Nimue does not automatically take ownership of every bar of soap her subjects drop in the bath.

According to the legend, written upon one side of Excalibur's blade is the phrase, "Cast Me Away," said in some stories to symbolize the wisdom of the king to know that his rule must one day end. In others, it is meant as a sign that King Arthur was only ever borrowing Excalibur, and that it must one day return to the hands of the Lady of the Lake. From this legend, this Noble Phantasm receives its name.

 **Castle Avalon [Noble Phantasm]  
Fortress Beneath the Lake**

The castle built beneath the lake which is the home of Lady of the Lake Nimue. A fortified defensive construct built entirely through the usage of magecraft, it is also a fortress befitting a sorceress of Nimue's level. Every brick and even the layout of the buildings and walls is optimized for magical formulae, allowing her to perform large scale thaumaturgy quickly and easily.

The main attribute of this castle is its ability to be further fortified, even after it has been established. Through the magical formulae inscribed into the walls, defenses may be added or modified with relative ease, to the point where even the castle's rank as a defensive construct may be increased. Naturally, there is a limit, and though it performs well, it was not designed for the purposes of withstanding a siege or defending against anti-fortification Noble Phantasms.

The truly unique attribute of this Noble Phantasm, however, is its innate function: when the Noble Phantasm is materialized, the area encompassed by its walls is automatically established as the territory of Lady of the Lake Nimue.

Incidentally, the original castle was created by Merlin in an open field. After she had learned all he had to teach her, Nimue tore it apart brick by brick and rebuilt it beneath the lake. For this reason, unlike normal Noble Phantasms that may be materialized at will, the castle must be rebuilt with magecraft before it can be established as "Castle Avalon."

 **Crown of Administration [Term]**

The passenger of Taylor Hebert, Apocrypha. The shard cannibalized by Alaya and repurposed to allow for the channeling of the power of Heroic Spirits. The means by which Taylor Hebert's powers function.

Also, were a "Heroic Spirit Apocrypha" to form, the name of her primary Noble Phantasm.

This is the Administration shard, originally destined to specialize in the original timeline's "bug control." Here, it has instead become something more than a simple shard, and has been transformed into an existence that is both shard and beyond, possessing all of the same biological functions of its predecessor form, but realigned towards the goal of human survival, at all costs.

In this form, it has been granted permissions to access the Throne of Heroes that exists outside the axis of space and time, and it acts as such as a channel, a connecting link, between Taylor Hebert and the Throne. However, it also acts as a buffer, a "step between" that keeps its host from being completely and utterly overwhelmed by the ego and the spiritual weight of the Heroic Spirits.

Furthermore, it serves as a repository of magecraft, a "collection of magical foundations," inscribing each unto a partitioned portion of itself as needed to allow Taylor Hebert to utilize the magecraft of a given Heroic Spirit. Undoubtedly, if anyone else were to find a method of connecting to it, they may make use of those magical foundations, as well.

Naturally, as it was and remains a shard of the Entities, it has access to multiple worlds, including those that thrived without the presence of humans, and can freely leech off of the abundant magical energy on those worlds. In essence, its nature as a shard means that Taylor Hebert may make use of nearly infinite mana.

 **Discernment of Potential [Skill]**

A skill related to Aífe's nature as a teacher.

Differing from her sister, who overflowed with talent in many respects and possessed the ability to see through the character and traits of others, Aífe instead had an intuitive grasp of "limitations." Rather than being able to determine one's worth in such a manner, it allowed her to grasp exactly how far any of her students was able to go in a given discipline.

Rather than allowing her to separate those of great talent and skill from those who were merely mediocre, she could instead bring out the latent potential in even the most hopeless of students.

This ability to discern not the talent of her students, but the limits of their capacity for growth, informed the structure of her school and teaching methods. Rather than setting a high bar for entry, she accepted anyone with the willingness and the desire to learn from her. Even if they possessed no talent whatsoever, she pushed them to their limits and trained them until they could advance no further.

Aífe utilized this skill primarily for the training of her students, so there is limited use for it in battle. However, it does allow her to know when her opponent is not fighting to his utmost and can allow her to grasp the existence of his trump card. Even so, it is not developed to the point where it is possible to completely understand its nature.

 **Exalted Queen's Solitude [Skill]**

The barrier which protects Apocrypha. An automatic ability of the highest class, a constantly-active type power with minimal upkeep. An imitation of the King of Knights' defensive Noble Phantasm, Avalon: Everdistant Utopia, it is an isolation-type ability that protects the user by removing her from the normal fabric of space and time and placing her in a higher dimension. It is an absolute protection that defends not with raw power, but rather by being beyond reach.

However, it is not as perfect as the original which it copies. Though it can absolutely defend against purely exotic attacks, such as skills or Noble Phantasms that create or alter the fabric of space-time or bend the laws of physics, the barrier itself can be shattered or breached by sufficient force, such as high caliber bullets or explosives of enough power.

Furthermore, since it cannot itself put her in the land of paradise, Avalon, its isolation is not complete, and so it is not impervious to the True Magics or abilities of a similar class.

Also, though it can absolutely defend against nearly any exotic effect, if that power is also accompanied by an attack sufficient to penetrate the barrier, then even this defense is not enough to protect her.

 **Gáe Bolg Prototype [Noble Phantasm]  
Soaring Spear of Deadly Thorns **

The original form of Gáe Bolg, one step older than the spear wielded by Cúchulainn. Possessing neither the attribute of attacking an enemy army nor the homing function of its descendant, nor reversing causality to pierce the heart, it might best be described as a weapon truer to the myth.

The spear is cast by Aífe with all her speed and strength, streaking through the air like a missile, and when it pierces the flesh of its target, it sprouts dozens of deadly thorns from its blade that rip and tear the enemy apart from the inside out. A sure kill technique that will absolutely result in death, no matter where it lands.

The thorns which sprout rupture organs, shred muscles, and rip arteries. Only those with enhanced constitutions who can fight with deadly wounds will not die instantly. For those who are not immediately killed, the bleed effect deals constant damage that will inevitably result in death. Even those who survive the initial wound have only a temporary reprieve from their final fate.

 **Geis [Term]**

The curse of the ancient Celts. A form of spell wielded by the peoples of Ireland and Scotland, commonly seen in the mythology of the Ulster and Fenian Cycles. Has equivalents in other cultures, as well.

When one is broken, great misfortune befalls the oath-breaker.

The primary and most commonly known form of geis is a form of contract or oath. Cúchulainn made several of these, including the oath to never eat the meat of a dog, and the breaking of this geis is what led to his eventual death. In such cases, there is often a tacit or explicit agreement by the person or people undertaking the oath that they will abide it. This form also applies to geis that are placed on positions of power, in that a person taking such a position agrees by the act of taking it to the Geasa that are placed upon it.

However, there is also a secondary form that exists as a curse one places upon another, regardless of consent. This form, utilized by Grainne against Diarmuid of the Love Spot, is one that requires power and authority over the one being bound, such as a princess or queen over a knight or a goddess over a mortal man.

Of note, the form of Geas Rin Tohsaka uses in the Heaven's Feel route of _Fate/stay night_ is the Germanic equivalent, a weaker binding curse that cannot dictate action, only forbid it. As a form of binding, it is absolute, but as a curse, it is a weaker effect.

 **Hotswap [Term]**

 **Serial Summon (Hotswap).**

The practice of Apocrypha switching from one Install to the next without stopping in between. A quick and effective method of bypassing the ordinary delay between the usage of Installs by cutting it out entirely.

Naturally, in terms of speed, it is the fastest method. However, in terms of stress, it puts her real body under a great deal more than an Install would otherwise.

As a result, performing a Hotswap is a maneuver with a much greater chance of inflicting serious damage or even death and carries with it a proportional amount of pain. Whereas an ordinary Install causes little to no pain, a Hotswap causes what might be described as adolescent growth pangs, the so-called "growing pains," only increased by orders of magnitude.

Because of the pain involved and the incredible stress endured by her real body, it is only natural that this is a method Apocrypha does not use very often. However, in a situation where time is of the essence and even the few seconds of delay that normally occur between Installs can have dire consequences, this last resort maneuver may be employed.

 **In Glenn Mór [Noble Phantasm]  
Great Valley of the Warrior Queen's Battlefield**

The crystallization of Aífe the general, Aífe the queen, Aífe the leader of armies. The manifestation of her nature that is related to leadership and battle, rather than the tutelary aspect of her other Noble Phantasm. It is the creation of an advantageous territory through the overlapping of space upon the real world.

Through the utilization of this Noble Phantasm, a great valley, bordered by impassable mountains, is formed. Within this valley, as Aífe's territory, the rules regarding the summoning of Heroic Spirits are temporarily relaxed, and Aífe may call upon the various heroes and legendary warriors who learned and fought under her. They are summoned as temporary existences akin to Servants, possessing only enough power to maintain their form for a scant thirty turns.

However, as this is the territory on which they trained and did battle, they may each utilize a single Noble Phantasm once before fading away, and the more of them that do so cause the fabric of the valley to fracture and dissolve. Furthermore, the burden upon Aífe and her Master to supply magical energy to maintain the structure increases drastically should Noble Phantasms be used.

Naturally, should one attempt to leave the area encompassed by the Noble Phantasm either by travelling beyond the mountains or surpassing the boundary of the sky, he will find himself returned to the real world. Even so, to attempt to flee opens him up to the attacks of the warriors called upon to fight.

Though it has similarities to the King of Conquerors' Ionioi Hetairoi, it is closer in form to the Noble Phantasm of Emperor Nero or the spear of Achilles.

Has no relation to Scotland's "An Gleann Mór."

 **Khepri [Heroic Spirit]  
Hero of the Dawn**

A Heroic Spirit born in a grim, alternate future. A version of Taylor Hebert from a different timeline who went down a different path.

Previously known by different names, she committed great and terrible deeds in the name of what she believed was good. At the end of a long and harrowing tale, with her mind fraying and falling apart, she had her powers removed by two bullets, aimed precisely, through her head and retired permanently.

The Hero of the Dawn who slew the Entity Zion and saved the world.

The Skittering Warlord who slew the hero Alexandria and conquered a city.

Possessing attributes of both a hero and a villain, she is a Heroic Spirit that refuses simple classifications. As such, her exact alignment would depend upon which facet of this Heroic Spirit is summoned, with her younger form aligned to Lawful Evil and her older form aligned to Chaotic Good.

Naturally, as a Heroic Spirit of the future, her fame in this era is nonexistent. However, as Heroic Spirit with worldwide fame in her own time period, she boasts a disproportionate level of power, so even though her general performance is low, her Noble Phantasms are of the highest class.

In _An Essence of Silver and Steel_ , this is the first Heroic Spirit the protagonist utilizes. As a future version of herself who went down a path and became a person she cannot approve of, naturally, she rejected this Heroic Spirit and refused to consider her use. After all, when one looks upon her own mistakes, she can only look away.

 **Khepri [Noble Phantasm]  
Queen of Administration**

The signature Noble Phantasm of Khepri (Taylor Hebert). The ultimate expression of her absolute control, representing the part of her legend wherein she bent thousands of great warriors to her will and enthralled them to herself.

Embodying that legend, it is an Anti-Army Noble Phantasm that allows her to take control of the bodies of anyone and everything within her range, including those of other Servants. The only way to resist is to have a high enough resistance to magic or a mental skill that protects or alters the mind sufficiently to prevent Khepri from exercising absolute control.

It is not an effect similar to the Mystic Eyes of Enchantment of a vampire or simple hypnosis. Rather than "coercion" that may be shaken by circulating magical energy through the magic circuits, it is instead "hijacking," rendering control of the body to Khepri rather than simply bending the mind into the preferred shape.

To boil it down, it turns those in range into her familiars.

As a Noble Phantasm of such class, it naturally requires mental or magical resistance of the highest class in order to be thrown off.

However, the disadvantage of the Noble Phantasm is in the danger of its use. By activating it, A-rank Mental Pollution is also equipped by Khepri, twisting her thoughts and interpreting the actions of others through the lens of conflict and fighting. The longer the Noble Phantasm remains activated, the further her mental state deteriorates into something utterly inhuman. Furthermore, the efficacy of her skill, **Familiars (Arthropods)** , also decreases drastically.

 **Nicolas Flamel [Heroic Spirit]  
Eremitic Alchemist**

The great mind that plumbed the secrets of alchemy. The hermit who discovered the process for the creation of the Philosopher's Stone. A humble bookseller who spent his riches on philanthropic projects to better mankind.

Sometimes also referred to as the **Father of Modern Alchemy** , Nicolas Flamel is all of those things as well.

He was a hermit who studied alone, a prodigy from a minor line of magi who never attempted to join the Mage's Association nor teach a student.

As a reclusive genius, he laid the foundations for the practice of modern alchemy that Paracelsus von Hohenheim established one century later. Though he shared his studies with no one, his intellect was undeniable, and many of the basic principles behind the thaumaturgical processes of alchemy can be traced back to his original works. A real once-in-a-century mind that never failed to grasp the "truth" of his studies.

It is said that all of his discoveries were based upon his translation of an ancient magical text, the **Codex Abramelin** , but those are only rumors.

He is the creator of the true Philosopher's Stone, rather than the imitations patterned after it.

And then he immediately destroyed it, to prevent the dilution of its mysteries.

He died without an heir, and the transcripts of his discoveries were either lost or scattered in the wake of his death.

Centuries later, accounts of his skill with alchemy spread to the mundane world. As a Servant, he laments that the secrets he never wanted told were somehow revealed to everyone.

 **Nimue [Heroic Spirit]  
Lady of the Lake**

In the Dark Ages of Britain, a young girl was born to a faithful devotee of the goddess of the moon, Diana. In repayment for his steadfast faith and worship, the girl was born with the attribute of the fairies and blessed with a bewitching beauty that bordered on a curse. It was this beauty that drew to her the Magician of Flowers, Merlin, and which convinced him to take her as his apprentice.

In Lancelot's story, she is referred to by the name Vivian. When the king and queen were driven from their kingdom, carrying with them their infant son, as the queen tended to her husband's wounds before succumbing to her own, at that time, this woman appeared and took the little prince into her kingdom beneath the lake.

It was also she who delivered Excalibur and its sheath into the hands of the king, and later, she who accepted it back upon the king's death.

This woman, appearing often in the tales of King Arthur and his Round Table as the queen of half-fairy women, is the Lady of the Lake, Nimue.

 **Old Town [Term]**

A section of Brockton Bay, a subsection of the Docks.

An area of the city comprised almost entirely of old buildings dating back to the turn of the century — or earlier. Consists to a large degree of abandoned warehouses and run-down residences, left to rot by the corporations downtown and miles of red tape and disputed ownership. In the wake of the crash of the shipping industry, even those which remained in use for decades have been left behind.

Now, "unofficially" owned almost in its entirety by the pan-asian gang, the Azn Bad Boys.

It was here that the heroine, Apocrypha, made her first base in one of the abandoned warehouses.

It was also here that she confronted and fought Lung for the first time.

 **Outsiders [Term]**

The Entities. The Parasites. The Worms. Referred to by these and several other names, these are the beings that came upon the Earth and seeded it with the phenomena known as "parahumans." It is from their shed fragments that such powers arise and are made possible.

They are great beasts of outstanding might which naturally evolved an ability similar to the Operation of Parallel Worlds, the Second Magic. As one of their primary defenses against annihilation, they are capable of inhabiting multiple separate realities simultaneously, shifting and spreading their mass throughout multiple realities. Keeping the majority of their mass on "dead" worlds allows them to escape the planetary consciousness of a chosen host world, for those who follow the primary model of experimentation.

These beings are stuck in a cycle of growth, reproduction, expansion, overpopulation, and culling. Unable to break this cycle on their own, after thousands of repetitions, they left their homeworld and journeyed into the stars, seeking a method of overcoming this loop by piggybacking off of the cleverness and ingenuity of other species. There are many models by which this experimentation is carried out, although most of them might be described as parasitic.

Those who follow the Warrior and Thinker template are adept terraformers and have developed techniques both subtle and unstoppable to subvert the collective will of the species which form their test subjects. Not only by keeping themselves untouchable on a remote, unreachable alternate world, but by inserting their own logic into the native Order of the World, akin to adding a section of code to an already existing computer program, rather than outright forcing their logic onto the World in the manner of a Type, they can create a self-reinforcing loop that prevents correction by the native Counter Forces, a kind of **Forced Cohabitation Procedure** ( **Deadlock Symbiosis** ).

Even in the case where the local Counter Forces act to remove the outside influence, the Entity's existential inertia disallows for their being casually erased. In the rare cases where their primary defenses, that of hiding their main masses on uninhabited worlds, fails, even then, it is not possible to defeat them easily.

For this reason, very few civilizations — and consequently, the planets they existed on — have overcome these roving titans and cast them down.

 **Pseudo Magic Circuits [Term]**

The apparatus utilized by Taylor Hebert as a means of enacting her powers are what might be called **Pseudo Magic Circuits**. They are the artificial organ through which magical energy is channeled in her body, and thereby also the means by which she fuels her Installs.

Unlike the true Magic Circuits of a magus, the nature of Taylor's Pseudo Magic Circuits is closer to a muscle, which can increase its functionality through damage and self-repair, than a nerve, which can become more efficient through repetitive use but is unable to repair itself when damaged. Rather than having a set load capacity that cannot be increased, these may increase their load capacity after reaching a certain level of stress and then being allowed to recover.

However, contrarily, because Taylor herself has little control over them, throttling the amount of magical energy which is passed through is difficult. Furthermore, unlike true Magic Circuits, they are unable to connect to magical foundations engraved upon the World.

This is because these Pseudo Magic Circuits are only imitations of the real thing and are more like extensions of Taylor's Corona Gemma and Pollentia, therefore what Taylor is connecting to are her passenger and the magical formulae stored within her passenger every time she calls upon the power of a Heroic Spirit. Even were she to activate traditional magecraft without the use of an Install or Include, the actual act of injecting magical energy into a magical foundation would be performed by her passenger.

Taylor herself possesses no inborn Magic Circuits.

 **Queen of Escalation [Noble Phantasm]  
None Shall Strike Me With Impunity**

The Noble Phantasm of Heroic Spirit Khepri. An innate ability, a constantly active Noble Phantasm that is more like a burden of the body than a tool she treasured in life.

Whenever the enemy she faces is superior to her, in terms of physical capabilities especially but also if they are using a Noble Phantasm to support their own abilities, all of Khepri's abilities are significantly boosted to compensate. Furthermore, the success of all saving throws on Khepri's part is doubled, and the minimum requirements for any Luck checks she undergoes are reduced by two ranks.

This is a significantly powerful Noble Phantasm, an "equalizer" that works as an "evening of the playing field" in order to negate the advantages of the opponent and allow Khepri to fight without being so easily overwhelmed. It is a nonstandard ability that does not boost physical parameters, but rather vastly increases the performance of Khepri's skills and buffs her "success rate."

Although it was not the most characteristic deed of her legend, Khepri was well-known for being able to leverage her skills and creative use of her abilities in order to defeat enemies who should normally be a great deal more powerful than she is. This Noble Phantasm is the result of that aspect, embodying that particular facet of her legend.

 **Resonance of Saint Graph [Term]  
**  
In a word, harmonization. The degree and strength of the connection between Taylor Hebert and the Heroic Spirit which she Installs. The level of synchronization between her and the Heroic Spirit. The more complete the harmony, the more she can display the power and skill of the Heroic Spirits.

There are several factors that affect this parameter. One such factor is the situation: by utilizing a Heroic Spirit that has a connection to the situation via either an event in his legend or his strong feelings (regrets, trauma), the degree of cooperation between her and the Heroic Spirit is increased. As an example, to utilize the Heroic Spirit, Siegfried, in a situation involving a dragon, the Heroic Spirit's true strength can shine through most completely. This is a result of **Harmonization of Ego Pattern** , where the mindset of the Heroic Spirit and the mindset of Taylor Hebert are in sufficient agreement regarding the situation.

Another such factor is how deeply Taylor Hebert draws upon the Heroic Spirit. Though most scenarios only require a basic level of cooperation, such that the influence of the Heroic Spirit's ego is negligible or almost unnoticeable, if she draws upon the personality and experiences of the Heroic Spirit to help her handle not only the rigors of physical combat but also the mental stress of the situation, the ego of the Heroic Spirit becomes more pronounced. In this case, she will display personality traits and act more in line with that of the hero she has Installed.

 **Take Me Up [Noble Phantasm]  
Grace of the Lake Goddess**

The second of Nimue's two most characteristic Noble Phantasms. It is the embodiment of the legend of King Arthur receiving the sword, Excalibur, and its sheath. Clothed in white samite, the Lady of the Lake's hand held aloft the sword from the surface of the water and bestowed it upon the King of Knights, a show of her support for his reign, of her grace and blessing for his rule.

As the embodiment of that legend, it is the innate ability of Nimue to append the ownership of any item she owns, including that of Noble Phantasms, to another person. Even if it is a Noble Phantasm originally belonging to another Heroic Spirit, as long as it falls unto Nimue's possession, it is possible for her to append its ownership.

Having said so, even though it is a Noble Phantasm of the highest class, there are still limits. Though it is possible to change the ownership even of other Noble Phantasms, it does not bestow any skill along with it. The appended owner must himself possess the necessary skills and proficiencies in order to wield it properly, and the performance will naturally suffer if he does not.

As the legend states, on one side of Excalibur's blade was written the words, "Take Me Up," a reflection of its nature, contrary to the sword of selection that was never intended for battle. As the sword Excalibur is synonymous with King Arthur, so too is the legend of its gifting, of the Lady of the Lake's grace and blessing, synonymous with Nimue.

 **Thunder Feat [Term]**

The penultimate technique of the martial arts of the ancient Celts. A technique of such lethality and power that it was only ever surpassed by the Gáe Bolg, the secret technique of Scáthach and Cúchulainn. It was with this technique that Cúchulainn slew one thousand warriors without effort.

There are many forms to this technique. It may be accomplished with numerous tools, for the method of delivery is irrelevant to the technique itself. However, the primary and most basic form of this technique utilizes nothing more than the bare fist. Cúchulainn wielded it using a sling.

The characteristic sound of this technique is what gives it its name — with a sound like thunder, the user unleashes his power and obliterates the enemy.

This is a technique that can only be learned at a certain level of mastery in the ancient Celtic martial arts. It is only once one has conditioned his body, mind, and spirit to a sufficient level that he can wield this technique.

When pushed to the maximum at the highest levels of mastery, it is even possible to slay gods with this technique. That is to say, the fabric of space and time is warped such that to be struck by the Thunder Feat is akin to being hit by a white dwarf star moving at the speed of light. A punch with infinite mass, you might say.

 **Tyranny of the Queen [Noble Phantasm]  
Loyalty of the Enthralled**

Khepri's ultimate trump card. A reflection not of her nature nor of her tendencies in battle, but of the singular feat for which she is undoubtedly most famous: bringing together many others to fight for a common cause, by force.

This is the Noble Phantasm reflecting not her ultimate victory over the Entity Zion, but the method she contrived of to do so. It is the Noble Phantasm embodying the army she gathered to fight beside her, a Noble Phantasm which summons her soldiers, her thralls, to appear from across time and space and fight by her side once more.

It is also her most costly Noble Phantasm, requiring prohibitive amounts of magical energy in order to activate and maintain. After all, it is the sequential summoning of numerous Heroic Spirits, or else the remnants of those who may have become one after death, and it does not have the mitigating factors of a "shared world" or an overlapped space wherein the rules of Heroic Spirit summoning are altered or relaxed. Khepri herself bears the full burden.

Furthermore, each of those summoned to her side is akin to a Masterless Servant, wielding Noble Phantasms and high class skills. In order to support such activity, the cost must naturally rise as well. It would not be inaccurate to compare Khepri's upkeep and mana drain to that of a Rank A Berserker Servant with high level Madness Enhancement.

However, instead of performing a full summoning by invoking the True Name, it is also possible to temporarily make use of any Noble Phantasm possessed by any Heroic Spirit associated with this Noble Phantasm. In that case, the cost is drastically reduced, and Khepri may conserve energy in this manner.

Truly, this is Khepri's ultimate trump card.

As a side note, under most circumstances, Khepri: Queen of Administration must also be active in order to properly wield this Noble Phantasm. This is owed to the fact that most of Khepri's army did not serve willingly, and would not serve willingly in this case, either.


	62. Promise 7-1

**Promise 7.1**

"Trí cur trí. I mo ainm, scaoilteán mé tú ó do mionn."

 _Three by three. By my word, I release you from your oath._

The tattered remains of the geis that wound around our hearts, broken by Lisa when she killed Coil, loosened and vanished, and Lisa herself let out a sigh of relief, rubbing her chest with her off hand.

"That it, then?" she asked.

"That's it," I replied. "I…don't know if you've accrued any kind of karmic debt by breaking it, though, so…"

It was likely even Aife didn't know, although I'd check later. In the myths, no one ever attempted to release someone from a broken geis — to be fair, because no one had ever had _reason_ to, since, you know, breaking the thing in the first place didn't generally endear you to the one who had actually bound you. It was entirely possible that it was all over with, and it was equally possible that there _was_ some kind of karmic retribution waiting for her, even now.

"Right, right, play it safe, don't cross the street while the light's green, toss some salt over my shoulder before I leave the house, make sure not to walk and chew gum at the same time, got it," Lisa said. She let go of my hand. "I'll try to avoid taking any risks, for now. Definitely won't be going skiing or playing the lottery anytime soon."

"At least until I can take the time to make you a good luck charm," I added.

She stopped, frowning. "You know, I wasn't even sure you would. Hell, I wasn't sure you were even gonna deal with _this_ thing. I kinda assumed not, when I pulled the trigger."

The accusation _stung_ , even more so because a part of me had _considered_ it. I'd been entirely willing to put it all off until I could sort all of my feelings out and deal with them. I was good at that, it seemed. Not dealing with stuff. Putting it off until later by saying I had more important things to do first.

But that had gotten me in a lot of trouble, these last few weeks, and with an upcoming Endbringer attack entirely _possible_ , I wasn't willing to take the chances with Lisa's life.

"You thought I was just going to let you die?" I asked quietly. "After everything I did to save you?"

"Actively? No," Lisa admitted. "But you're a 'reap what you sow' kind of girl, Taylor. You're perfectly willing to give people a second chance — with just the amount of rope they need to hang themselves."

It wasn't untrue, when I gave it some thought. Immediately, my mind turned in the direction of the defenses I'd set up around my house, how they discouraged first, and then jumped straight to dangerous and outright lethal for those who were committed enough to abandon the chance to leave unharmed. I'd done much the same to Bakuda, too, because there were other methods of guaranteeing her silence, but the one I'd defaulted to was the one that would punish her for betraying my mercy.

I'd done the same to Lisa for betraying my trust and I'd been prepared to do it to Coil, too.

"You were my friend," I said. "I wasn't just —"

"Were?" she interrupted. "Past tense?"

I looked away.

"I…I don't know," I admitted. "I'm not even sure…about Amy. I just…Khepri…"

How much was her, how much was me. Three days, mostly spent dozing and worrying about Leviathan, were not enough to square all of that away. Three _years_ might not be enough. Maybe, if I had Doctor Yamada to help me figure it out —

 _Damn it, there's another one_.

It seemed like, every day, there was another person I didn't know, I _shouldn't_ know, creeping into my thoughts, as though they'd always been there. More of Khepri, settling in, even though I hadn't touched her since that night in the Trainyard. More of the memories and instinctual biases that I never noticed until they jumped out at me.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Lisa asked.

I met her eyes and hesitated — because a part of me wanted, oh so very badly, to get back those moments in the coffee shop, those days in the loft, that trust and camaraderie, but the rest of me was afraid to give Khepri more of a foothold — and that seemed to be answer enough, because she chuckled.

"Figured," she said ruefully. "The more you interact with me, the more the lines blur, huh? Gets harder to tell where you end and _she_ begins. The other Taylor."

And like always, Lisa's perception bordered on frightening. How easily she saw through me.

"You're taking this really well," I muttered. It sounded like an accusation.

She shrugged. "I had about a week to wrap my head around the idea. That's more than enough time to freak out and ponder the existential questions — like if free will is even a thing or if souls really exist or whether or not an alternate future version of myself became an immortalized hero, too. Don't answer that," she added. "I'm better off not knowing."

Before I realized it, my lips had started to curl into a smile, and then I ruthlessly crushed it and the warmth in my chest both.

"And everything else?"

"No side effects, if that's what you're worried about, but you already heard that from Amy, didn't you?" she said. She frowned, shifting at some memory she didn't share. "It wasn't _pleasant._ Saw things I never wanted to see again. That super bacteria was pretty nasty, too, but luckily, outside Noelle's body, it only had a lifespan of about five minutes."

"And the PRT?" I asked. "They're not keeping you here?"

I didn't necessarily trust Piggot, by the same token that I didn't necessarily _dis_ trust her, either, but if she was going to lie to me, the one more likely to get me to join the Wards was to say that Lisa was joining, too, so I was more inclined to think she must have told me the truth. I still wanted to hear it from Lisa's lips, though.

She shrugged.

"They've got me tearing through Coil's assets, trying to pull up all the roots. Gotta say, I'm getting a lotta mileage out of ripping everything he owned apart, it's very cathartic." She grinned her trademark grin. "Officially, I'm an independent contractor hired to help them ferret out his moles and his shell companies and all of that. They were even kind enough to cut me in on twenty-five percent of his money, once it's all been liquidated and sold off. Sort of a finder's fee, you know?"

"And unofficially?"

Because if my…if _Khepri's_ experience with the PRT had taught her anything, it was that there were always two sides to whatever they did: the pretty, sugar-coated version that made them look like rainbows shot out of their asses, and then the gritty, unvarnished truth. There was a reason some people liked to joke that the PR in PRT stood for "Public Relations."

If you were a new hero joining the Wards or the Protectorate, you got the former. If you were a reforming villain, going straight after you got caught and had to face the alternative of rotting in a cell, you got the latter.

Joining the Wards didn't mean I had to _agree_ with everything my new employers did. Just that I be willing to overlook their darker sides in exchange for the good they did — and would let _me_ do.

Lisa grimaced. "Unofficially, the Undersiders were minor enough and relatively unknown enough that they're willing to look the other way, as long as I don't fall back into villainy. They won't throw the book at me, won't even make me join the Wards or whatever, as long as I keep my nose clean."

"What about the others? Brian, Alec, Rachel, Aisha…"

Something… _indescribable_ curled in my belly. Anticipation. Anxiety. Something else that I couldn't put my finger on, reacting to Grue's name. To Brian.

 _Damn it, Khepri._

I didn't even know them, but Khepri's lingering feelings were strong enough that I _had_ to ask.

"Aisha?" Lisa asked, surprised. Belatedly, I realized that she hadn't even triggered, yet. "Damn. Grue'll be pissed when that happens. _If_ it happens, now, I guess." She sighed. "Well. I explained their situations as best I could, considering. Was part of the deal. Grue, they'll try to bring in, same way Coil got him. Get him a legitimate job, go to bat for him when he files for custody. Regent and Bitch, they're gonna be a bit quieter and a bit more cautious about. Comes with who they are and what made them that way."

"You don't know?"

" _They_ don't know, yet," she answered. "They might try to employ Bitch as a dog trainer or something. That's what I told them: she doesn't really care, as long as she has what she needs to take care of her dogs. Probably helped her case that I told them about how badly her Trigger screwed up her mental state — a lawyer can _literally_ argue insanity, since her moral standards are actually flipped around. As for Regent…"

She hesitated.

"They suspected before, but I had to basically confirm that he _is_ one of Heartbreaker's kids. That's… That's _also_ a fucked up situation that they aren't sure how to deal with, since Heartbreaker's worst off victims are his kids. Since he's a runaway, a minor, and all of the worst things he ever did can very easily be argued under the case of duress…"

They were in a bit of a jam. Canary's case _proved_ that the right judge, the right prosecutor, and an ineffectual enough defense attorney could get even a first time offender with a Master power a Birdcage sentence, so it wasn't like they didn't have the precedent and power needed to lock him up and throw away the key.

The problem was that Alec wouldn't go quietly. Even if they managed it, there was almost no way Lisa would let them get away with it. The details of everything he'd ever been subjected to by his father would be out and in public hands within _hours_ , and Master or not, scary powers or not, a skinny, effeminate fourteen-year-old boy didn't look like a monster. There'd be outrage and protests almost immediately.

That kind of thing? That was the sort of scandal that ended careers.

"I'm…honestly not sure how they'll handle him," Lisa admitted. "They…might try and bring him into the Wards? I don't know. Piggot isn't really the kind to let him skip town and be someone _else's_ problem, but he's also the kind of trouble I can see her wanting to avoid. They might just snatch him up, rebrand him, and send him to some other city. Let another division sort him out."

"And what are you going to do?" I asked. "Once you're done stripping Coil's businesses down to the bedrock?"

Lisa frowned, shrugging. "It depends."

"On?"

"Where _you_ are."

I blinked. What?

"Where… _I_ am? I'm right here, and I don't plan on going anywhere."

Lisa waved her hand. "We. Us, I mean. I get it, you want some space to get your head back on straight, figure things out. Honestly, Taylor? I think you're right. I think you need a little while to sort out what's you and what's her and what any of that means. You've been sitting in Khepri's shadow for the past four months, and if I'd realized it sooner? If I'd known about it before? I'd…"

She trailed off, like she wasn't quite sure what she would have done. How she would have tried to help me. I didn't know how she would have done it, either. Khepri was something I could only overcome by facing her directly and not looking away. She was me, and the only way to move on from it was to accept it and that there was nothing, not the strongest wishful thinking in the world, that could be done to change that.

"I don't know," she said finally. "But I'd have tried to help, at least. So if you come out the other side of this thing, deciding we're still friends, then I guess I'll be wherever you are, even if that means sucking it up and joining the Wards, too."

Something in my chest resonated, a feeling of warmth and friendship. I didn't squash it, this time, even though I still wasn't sure whether it was mine or Khepri's.

I hadn't decided yet whether or not it mattered.

"You wouldn't rather be an independent?"

"Oh, hell yes, I would," she admitted easily. "I could do without taking marching orders from the government, for sure. But it'd be way too lonely, doing it by myself. I'd go mad — either with power or boredom — inside a week, and then where would I be? I'd rather be chafing under authority with a friend than be free alone."

That… That was actually really touching. And I wasn't sure I deserved that kind of consideration.

"Lisa…"

Without any warning, she pulled me into a sudden hug, and before I could think about whether or not I wanted to, my arms rose and hugged her right back, just as hard.

"So if this is it and this is the last time I get to talk to you," she muttered into my ear, "then…thanks, for being my friend."

Something in my chest shuddered and ached, and I let out a shaky breath.

 _Even after all of this, after everything that happened because of me, you still…_

A moment later, she pulled away and let me go, smiling.

"Come and let me know, when you've got it all figured out, okay? For now, though, I'm not the only one you need to talk to. You have other places you need to be."

I took in another shuddering breath. Right. She was right. There _were_ other places I needed to be, other people I needed to see. I couldn't talk to Lisa all day.

"I'll…see you later."

Her smile turned sardonic. "Honestly, Taylor? I'm hoping so, too."

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

I left Lisa to her dismantling and made my way back through the PRT building. There were probably several people here I should talk to, just to clear the air, and I'd probably be making several stops over the course of the next week or two — when I wasn't preparing for Leviathan — to touch base with my new…coworkers. Teammates? I suppose they were both, really.

There was one, however, that I thought I should probably talk to, first, now that I'd touched base with Lisa.

That was why I navigated my way through the building and up to the Wards section, into the chromed hallway. I'd slipped into my base costumed form on the way, and none of the security personnel stopped me, so I took that as tacit permission to keep going.

I only hesitated once I reached the retinal scanner, not only because I wasn't sure I'd even be in the system, yet, but also because…because this conversation was likely to be a lot less friendly than the one I'd just had with Lisa.

But if I was going to be working with these people, it was one I needed to have. There was no sense in putting it off.

Just me being nervous, with no swarm to push my reactions into, so that I could at least have the illusion of confidence.

 _And there's another one_. _Damn it._

A chime from my phone grabbed for my attention, and I pulled it out to look at the text I'd just been sent.

" _Your credentials have been fast-tracked, so you should be able to enter the Wards area like normal. If you have any trouble or concerns, I'm more than happy to address them for you."_

The return number was a 604 area code, and after a moment, the ID rewrote itself into "Dragon."

Of course. And now I had no legitimate excuse to avoid this conversation, did I?

I half-wished there was a security camera in this hallway, just to I could look straight at it and give Dragon my most spectacularly unimpressed look.

With a sigh, I vanished the lenses of my mask and leaned forward to look directly into the retinal scanner. A quiet beep later, the doors clicked and whirred open with barely a sound, and I stepped into the Wards base section of the PRT HQ.

Vista, it seemed, was waiting for me. She was sat down in the middle of the room, with her phone set on a nearby table. She'd probably been killing time with it, before.

She also had her mask off. After a moment, I got rid of mine, too. Just to put us on even ground.

"So," she said evenly.

"So," I repeated back at her.

Awkwardly, I couldn't quite figure out where to start, so I just stayed quiet.

"…I figured you'd be coming here to talk to me," she said at length.

"You did?" I asked.

She nodded stiffly. "We got the notice probably as soon as you finished signing all the paperwork." She jerked her head at her phone. "Letting us know you had joined up, were one of the Wards now. Figured, you and I are the ones who have the worst history together, now that…Sophia is gone, so one way or another, they'd want us to hash it out and make nice."

Well. I couldn't exactly fault her logic on that one.

"Piggot didn't send me," I told her. She twitched a little, like she hadn't expected that. "I…decided to come here on my own. Clear the air."

"Oh," she said. "Well. Oh."

We fell into another awkward silence. The air between us felt stifling, and yet also cold and sharp. Neither of us seemed to have any idea what we were supposed to say or how we were supposed to go forward.

Finally, I pushed forward and asked, "How much did they tell you? About… About Sophia?"

Vista grimaced. "Probably most of it. The bullying. The whole…hate-on she had for you, for no apparent reason. The…the thing about your best friend. Emily?"

"Emma," I corrected a little tersely.

The Trio… It felt weird, after everything, that I wasn't quite over it. So much stuff had happened, so many _worse_ people had tried to hurt me or people I cared about, and even Khepri herself had just stopped _caring_ about them, eventually. They really _were_ small, in the grand scheme. Unimportant. Petty, really.

But there was an ache still associated with them. A sting to Sophia's name, a thrill of nervousness and hurt and fear to Emma's. They'd left an indelible mark on me, and I wasn't sure I could ever remove that black spot on my heart, that wound from my soul. Not right now, at least.

"Right. Her." Vista nodded. "And…that they caused your…your Trigger."

My lips thinned.

And that? That was the exact reason _why_.

"The Locker Incident. Your…having to spend a week in the hospital. They…didn't tell me _everything_ , just that it was bad. Really bad."

Understatement of the year, Vista.

"Anything else?"

"How she died," she answered. "Or…their best guess, I mean. They didn't go into too many details."

Because they didn't have them.

"I never told them," I admitted. "It never felt like something I wanted to explain."

"They said she was cut in _half_."

It sounded almost like an accusation.

"She was," I answered. "She decided to ignore every warning given to her and tried to attack me in my home. The…defenses I set up around my house to protect me and my dad from villains who might want revenge are somewhat more…potent than a guard dog."

Another contender for understatement of the year. Me, this time.

"She decided she hated me enough to try and kill me, just because she couldn't take it as well as she could dish it out. If she'd just left when she ran headfirst into my bounded field, she'd still be alive."

"Bounded field?" asked Vista.

My lips pursed. "Read _Harry Potter_?"

Reluctantly, she nodded. I didn't know why. _Harry Potter_ wasn't the highest form of literature, true, but it wasn't like it was bad enough that anyone should be ashamed to have read it, let alone enjoyed it. _I'd_ enjoyed it, after all.

"Like wards, basically."

"Or a Shaker power," she suggested, which, okay, yeah, she was _the_ Shaker in Brockton.

"One that can be set and left alone, yes," I agreed. "But Sophia ran straight into mine, ignored the warning, kept going, and hit the stuff meant for guys like Hookwolf or Oni Lee, and then _kept on going_. I woke up the next morning to find her cut into halves."

Vista grimaced. "She really hated you that much, huh?"

"She spent almost two years doing her level best to make my life as much of a living hell as she could," I reminded her. "With the help of the girl who used to be my best friend."

She clicked her tongue. "Yeah. Guess she was even more of a bitch in her civilian life than she was in costume." A pause. She arched an eyebrow. "Aren't going to scold me for swearing?"

I'd honestly been hearing _worse_ for the past two years. I was the poster child for how people could make you feel like dirt without using a single swear word.

"Wait til you get to high school," I said instead. "That's _tame_."

She snorted. "Yeah. I bet."

She leaned back in her chair.

"I guess that's the whole story, then?"

"All of the important bits, at least," I confirmed.

Vista sighed.

"None of us liked her all that much," she admitted. "Like I said, Sophia was a bitch in costume, too. I…kind of admired her, for how little she seemed to care about toeing the rules? It felt like it let her actually get stuff _done_ , rather than the PR shit the rest of us have to deal with, but… At the same time? Anyone who was partnered with her got an earful anytime she went on one of her 'solo' patrols."

"She shot Grue, once," I said quietly. It was something Khepri had been told, way back when. "With one of the broadhead bolts she wasn't supposed to be using, anymore."

Vista blew out a long breath. "I… Yeah, I can't say I'm surprised, anymore. If it was Hookwolf or something, maybe… But the Undersiders are… Well, I guess _were_ , now, right? They were small time. Petty crooks. None of them deserved _lethal_ measures." She sighed again. "But I guess Sophia didn't care about that, so much as she just needed…I don't even _know_."

"Does it matter?" I asked.

I didn't think the exact psychology behind Sophia's psychosis really made a difference, in the end. I'd long since stopped caring about her reasoning, only that whatever it might have been, she was a horrible human being with a black heart.

 _Khepri_ might have found a use for her. Me? I was just glad to be rid of her.

"No," she agreed. "I guess it doesn't. I don't know that she deserved to die, either…but I guess she did because it was her own fucking fault."

I let out a breath of my own.

"All right," I said. "So where does that leave us, then? You and me? Can we work together, as Wards?"

She snorted, smirking.

"We're not suddenly besties or anything like that, if that's what you're asking," she told me. "But…I'm willing to give it a shot. Working with you, I mean. Blank slate. Start over from scratch. Think you can deal with that?"

I felt my lips curl into a tiny smile.

"Yeah. I think that would suit me just fine."

Especially since I had come down here fully expecting a belligerent little girl, refusing to even look my way without glaring.

"I look forward to working with you, Vista."

She grinned.

"Same to you, Apocrypha."

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

 **I make no promises about the accuracy of that Irish at the top. I didn't even try to step it back to Old Irish, either.**

 **The first half felt stronger, to me. Vista's section feels like there needs to be... _more_ to it.**

 **Anyway. We'll have a few chapters of socializing and planning for the fight, one interlude, and then we'll get to Leviathan and I get to have _fun_ and let Taylor off the chain for real.**

 **For those interested, the wedding was nice and I enjoyed most of it. But the chairs that were used should be counted as a crime against humanity.**

 **If you want to support me as a writer so I can pay my bills, I'm on P A treon (p a treon . com (slash) James_D_Fawkes), and if P a treon is too long term, you could buy me a ko-fi (ko-fi . com (slash) jamesdfawkes).**

 **Or if you want to commission something from me, check out my Deviant Art page to see my rates.**

 **As always, read, review, and enjoy.**


	63. Promise 7-2

**Promise 7.2**

When my long, emotionally exhausting day was finally over, Dad got to go home, escorted by a nondescript cargo van carrying my enchanted mattress. I, on the other hand, had to stay at the PRT HQ while the paperwork was filed and taken care of, because I was still technically under protective custody.

The rest of the Wards, it seemed, were either at school or on patrol, because by the time I trudged into the room in their section set aside for me, feeling like a wrung-out towel more than anything else, I hadn't met any of them, apart from Vista. Or maybe they were just all avoiding me; I had no idea.

I didn't have the energy left to care which, so I just threw myself onto the bed of my new room, kicked off my shoes, and groaned into the pillow.

I chanced a glance at the clock that some considerate soul had placed on the room's desk in clear view of the bed, and 7:37 PM stared back at me in big, glowing numbers. A nap couldn't hurt, I decided, and closed my eyes.

But what felt like seconds later, I was jarred awake, blinking at my darkened room. The clock read 10:12 PM.

I shifted, hefting myself up with a soft grunt, unsure what had woken me. Barely a second later, though, I heard somewhat indistinct voices from outside my room.

The Wards section had a recreation center. Had one of the others come in and turned the TV on?

I slipped out of bed with a vaguely serpentine slide and stood, rubbing at the spots where my glasses had dug into my face, then padded over to my door and laid my hand upon the knob.

For a few seconds, that was as far as I got. Because I suddenly realized — the other Wards might be on the other side of that door. All of them, including the ones that I hadn't officially met, yet.

And I had no idea what they thought of me. What they knew. Whether they hated me for Shadow Stalker's death, or even for what had happened with Noelle and Khepri. The old fear of whether they felt overshadowed by someone who could fight on the Triumvirate's level.

Dennis had been nice enough, but after Khepri, would he still…

No, I decided, taking a deep breath. No more running away. I'd already talked to Vista, and she _had_ hated me, at one point. I could do this, too.

I twisted the knob and started to open the door.

"— we're here?" said a voice. "I mean, why we were all called in and have to stay for the night?"

"You haven't heard, yet?" asked Vista. "We're getting a new Ward."

Quieter, I heard her add, "Didn't anyone read the damn notice they sent out?"

"A new Ward?" someone else asked.

"She signed the paperwork today, came down to clear the air with me."

"Oh good, another girl," said Dennis. "It's about time, if you ask me. Too many guys here, these days, it's a sausage fest. No offense, Vista, but ever since Shadow Stalker…"

He trailed off, as though suddenly realizing the landmine he'd been about to step on.

I paused, blinking at the sliver of light that came through the crack, and shrank away, wilting. _You fucking coward_ , I told myself.

"Um, ah, there's just too much testosterone around here, is what I'm saying," he fumbled. "We could use a little more, um, estrogen, you know?"

"Before Clock decides to start chewing on his own shoe some more —"

"Hey! You ever think I just like how it tastes?"

"— do we have any idea who it is?"

"Seriously," grunted Vista, "was I the only one who read the memo?"

"Things have been… _tense_ with the Dallons and New Wave," said another voice. "I wouldn't be surprised if you told me it was Panacea."

Amy.

It had been a couple days since I'd last seen her. Had she gone home?

I needed to talk to her, too. Especially after everything I had talked to Lisa about, I needed to…to tell her all about that stuff, too, and…

My hand let go of the door knob and I sank to the floor with a quiet sigh, dropping my head into my hands.

Damn it. Damn it, damn it, damn it. Couldn't I have more time, to…to deal with all of this, before Leviathan came?

"Hang on, I'm checking it now," a third unknown voice said.

"I wouldn't be surprised if Panacea joined up, either," said the second voice. "I got the impression that she's…that after what happened to Brandish, things aren't exactly —"

"Holy fucking shit!" the third voice screeched. "Apocrypha? They're letting _her_ into the Wards?! After she mind-controlled everyone and tried to kill _Alexandria_!? Are they out of their goddamn _minds_?"

I winced, biting my lip.

That sort of reaction, that was exactly what I'd been afraid of.

"Jesus — _shut your mouth,_ Kid Win!" Vista hissed. "You'll wake her up!"

"She's here?" someone else asked in a strangled voice.

"They added a room, so I went to check whose it was," Vista confirmed. "She was out like a light."

"Wha — you mean you've been here with her _all day_?"

"I mean, yeah? I just told you, I talked to her earlier, after she got all the paperwork signed."

"Are you — even after all that happened? After what she _did_?"

"Oh, for the love of — she's a person, not some mutated alien creature that's going to crawl down your throat and take over your body from the inside."

"You can't tell me it didn't bother you!" Kid Win said, lower, quieter this time, but with no less heat. "She just…just… _mind-controlled_ us like it didn't even matter! Like it was nothing! Not even a howdy-do or a warning, just _bam_ , and we were puppets dancing to her tune and following her every whim —"

"That wasn't what happened at all," someone said. I didn't recognize the voice, but it was definitely a boy. I knew Dennis — Clockblocker — and Kid Win was the one who was shouting, so this had to be Gallant, Browbeat, or Aegis. "You guys don't have my powers, so you couldn't see it like I did, but she…she was terrified."

I closed my eyes and took a quiet, shaky breath, then let it out slowly. Some kind of emotion-sensing Thinker power or something — not Aegis, who was something of a nonstandard Brute, or Browbeat, who was a self-targeting biokinetic of some stripe.

Gallant, then. It fit with the emotion-altering Blaster power that he used offensively, the one that Khepri's Tattletale had once warned the Undersiders about.

I wanted to go in. I wanted to barge in and stop him, stop him from sharing this secret, this personal moment where I'd fallen apart, but something held me in place. Something glued my feet to the floor and my tongue to the roof of my mouth. No matter how desperately I wanted to, I couldn't move from that spot and I couldn't speak.

Maybe, deep inside, I _wanted_ them to know. To understand that things had gone the way they did not because that was how I'd wanted them to go, but because I'd had no other choice and I'd been backed into a corner.

It would be more consideration than Khepri had often gotten.

"It was like the world was falling apart around her," he went on. "So much fear and anger and loathing and despair, angled both inwards and outwards and all over… Frustration, helplessness, desperation, and so, so much of it. It was so bad, if she hadn't already had powers, then I would've thought that was…"

"A Trigger Event," Dennis said quietly.

"It was like she was drowning," Gallant agreed. "Like she was drowning and didn't know how to swim, and no one was reaching in to pull her out of the water. It was…hard to look at. Like staring into the sun."

For a long moment, no one else said anything.

I had no idea what they were thinking. Were they sympathetic? Did they care at all about where I'd been, the choices I'd been forced to make that night, all because of my own, stupid mistakes? Or was Khepri, was forcefully bending their bodies to follow my will and fight Alexandria, even if it was for the purpose of saving my only friends, a step too far for them to accept?

Vista, at least, had seemed willing enough to put it behind her, when we talked, or at least, she hadn't brought it up and made a fuss. I'd taken that, implicitly, as water under the bridge. The others, though? Aside from Dennis, I'd never even talked to any of them, and even with him, not since that night.

"…That doesn't make it okay," Kid Win said at length.

"Maybe not," another new voice allowed. The only ones who I hadn't identified yet were Aegis and Browbeat, so it had to be one of them. "But it makes it understandable, don't you think? She was in a horrible situation and she did the only thing she could think of to try and fix it. No one else had any better ideas, at the time."

"The Triumvirate —"

"Are human, too," Aegis cut him off. "I get it, guys. They seem superhuman, don't they? Better than any of us could ever be. Stronger, smarter, with better powers… But…I'm not sure _they_ were making the best decisions that day, either."

"They were trying to deal with the threat," Kid Win defended. "An S-Class threat."

"And you don't think the danger _they_ were in didn't play a part in their decisions?" Aegis rebutted. "Echidna almost had Alexandria. _Alexandria_. You don't think they might have done what they did because they were at least a little bit scared about fighting a clone of the strongest woman in the world?"

In Khepri's life, they _had_. It had taken Eidolon to defeat the clones of her, and in the meantime, the clones of both Alexandria and Eidolon had torn at the fighters' morale, revealing secrets that even Khepri, who had been opposed to the heroes at the time, had agreed were too dangerous to let out.

I couldn't imagine what sort of damage that would have done, if it had happened this time, too. Especially with Leviathan about to bear down on the city.

Understanding it better, now, didn't mean I liked it. Even _Khepri_ would have balked at the idea of sacrificing my friends.

"And it would have cost us dozens of people, including Panacea, Miss Militia, and Dauntless," Dennis added quietly. "I'm not saying…Apocrypha's decisions were better. But… No, you know what? I _will_ say that. Even if the way she did it was horrible and scarring and I hope to whatever god is listening that I never have to experience that again? She's the reason those people are still here."

"Because Alexandria was willing to let them all die," Vista said, voice hard. "I'm gonna agree with Clock. Maybe they weren't the best choices, but at least what she did saved those people."

"And Brandish?" Kid Win asked bitterly. "Is _she_ one of those people who's better off, because of Apocrypha?"

I grimaced.

No, I answered him silently, she wasn't.

"Kid…"

"We don't know what would have happened," Gallant tried to say. "There're a lot of what-ifs that we just can't answer. Talk about intelligently. With Echidna, we can at least be sure that Alexandria's decision would have resulted in a lot of innocent people dead, including people we care about."

"We all got the story from Glory Girl," Kid Win rebutted. "Panacea wouldn't have been there, if not for Apocrypha. If Panacea wasn't there, New Wave wouldn't have been there. Brandish _wouldn't_ have been hurt. Wouldn't have nearly died. Wouldn't be in a coma, right now. If it wasn't for Apocrypha."

I bit my lip. Because he was right.

But I'd already known that, hadn't I. I'd made a bunch of stupid decisions, that night. Miraculously, several of them hadn't gotten anyone permanently hurt or killed, but not all of them had ended like that.

If I could correct the results of some of those mistakes… Would it even matter, at this point? Even if Brandish was healed, would that undo the damage already done to her family?

"And if Panacea and New Wave _hadn't_ been there?" Aegis pointed out. "If it was _Apocrypha_ who had been hurt that badly by one of the clones? Or worse — what if Apocrypha had been captured by Noelle, and we had to fight clones of _her_? Could you imagine trying to deal with five or six of her, each one strong enough to give the Triumvirate a serious challenge?"

Or worse.

My fingers curled into fists.

Five or six of them, all controlled and coordinated by one using Khepri.

"Ugh," Dennis groused. "You're gonna give me nightmares."

"My point is," said Aegis, "things could have turned out a whole lot worse than they did. I'm not saying what happened to Brandish isn't a tragedy. I'm not saying Apocrypha is perfect and the sun shines out of her… Anyway. She made mistakes. People were hurt because of it, some of them might not recover from it. But at least we didn't lose everyone who was there, you know?"

Several of the others made noises of agreement.

"I can't believe this," said Kid Win. "You're defending her. You're _actually_ taking the side of the girl who Mastered everyone in this room and two whole Protectorate teams. Who turned us into her _slaves_."

"We're not taking her side," said Aegis.

"Um, I…kinda am?" Dennis put in. My lips twitched a little as I imagined him raising a hand, like he was at some kind of support group.

Paradoxically, I wanted to laugh. An 'I've been controlled by Khepri' support group. It wasn't even funny.

"We're just being understanding about the circumstances, that's all," Aegis continued, as though Dennis hadn't spoken. "Trying to think about where she was and why she did what she did. Not judging her for doing what she felt she needed to in order to save lives."

"Seriously?" said Kid Win. "Seriously? Even you, Vista? What about what happened a couple of weeks ago —"

"What happened a couple weeks ago was my own damn fault," Vista said, cutting across him. "It was my fucking screwup, okay?"

"Language," Gallant chided, but it almost seemed like an afterthought, an automatic reaction.

" _Whatever_ ," Vista spat irritably. " _I_ screwed up, there. Me. It was my own fu — freaking fault I got my arm blown off. She healed me when she didn't have to. And after what the Director… _After_ , I figured I could give her the benefit of the doubt, at least a little. That doesn't suddenly make her my best friend, Kid."

"I don't even…" Kid Win began. "I can't… I don't believe what I'm hearing, here. She…she _mind-controlled_ us, guys. Made us fight the Triumvirate. I…I couldn't even…"

"I'm sorry," I whispered my apology. It was a paltry and altogether inadequate measure of recompense for what I'd done, for what I'd _had_ to do, to save my friends. It was made all the more so by the fact that I couldn't even go out there and tell it to his face.

"It's okay not to be okay with what happened, Kid," said Gallant gently. "I don't think any of us actually are. Well, maybe Clock, if he's into that sort of thing —"

"That's a _little_ too far outside my comfort zone, thanks."

"— but none of us _likes_ what happened. We just have to…look at it a little differently. She's going to be our teammate, now, after all."

"We just have to live with it," Aegis picked up. "If she's an unrepentant… Well. You know. If she's like Shadow Stalker, then feel free to hate her as much as you like. But if she wants to be friendly and actually work together, all I'm asking is that you give it a try. We're heroes, after all. That includes her, now."

A moment of silence followed. I held my breath, waiting to see what the others would say.

"No," said Kid Win. "No. You guys go ahead and make nice with her, if you want. I'm fucking staying as far away as I fucking can, no matter what Piggot tries to order me to do."

There was a screech as his chair moved and he stood and left.

"If you need me, I'll be in my lab."

The doors to the Wards area whirled open, then shut.

Someone sighed.

"How about you guys?" asked Aegis. "You got any issues with trying to make this work?"

"Jawhol, Mein Fuhrer," Dennis said with an exaggerated German accent. "Ve shall try our best, und make ze fraulein velcome!"

"Vista?"

"I already said I would, didn't I?" she answered carelessly. "You don't have to worry about me, at least."

"Gallant?"

"It'll be a bit…awkward, with things with Vicky being the way they are," Gallant said. "She…might ask me to pick sides, and that's… Well. At the very least, I can work with her professionally, if that's what you're asking."

"Browbeat? You okay with this?"

For a long moment, Browbeat didn't answer. Then, he said, "I'm… I'm not, really. I kind of agree with…with Kid Win. I don't…"

"It's okay," Aegis told him.

"I can't… I can't _promise_ anything," said Browbeat. "She… What happened, it was… What it was like, being like that… I can't promise I'll be okay with it. But… I think… I think I can at least _try_."

"That's all I'm asking," Aegis assured him.

"Yeah…"

Another sigh.

"Okay. Clock, you and I have console duty, tonight, so we have to go and get ready for that. Vista, Browbeat, Gallant? Try and get some sleep. Tomorrow's still a school day, after all."

Dennis groaned, and so did his chair as he stood. "Ah, hell. I thought this whole thing tonight would mean we got out of school, tomorrow."

"You're not getting out of that English test that easily, I'm afraid."

"Yeah, yeah."

Then, they left, and the others bade each other good night and made for their own rooms. Carefully, I pulled myself back up to my feet and quietly closed my door.

Sighing, I turned back towards my bed and dropped my face into my hands, rubbing at my eyes.

Fuck. Just…fuck.

Another fucking mess. Another fucking mess that was _my fault_ , too, and one I'd have to deal with the consequences of.

Dennis, Vista, Aegis, and Gallant, at least they had been understanding. Whether Gallant or Aegis had been putting on a face for team unity…I didn't know. I wanted to trust that they'd meant every word. I _wanted_ to. But whether or not I could, that was something I might find out the hard way, and soon.

Dennis… Dennis seemed honest. He'd been that way a few weeks ago, too, and maybe that, maybe knowing what had really happened with Shadow Stalker, had bought me enough good will for him to be exactly as nice and understanding as he'd just been. I… I could probably trust that.

Vista had already extended that olive branch earlier today. Her, I think, I trusted the most. Somehow. Wasn't that just fucking backwards, that the girl who'd hated my guts was also the one most willing to give me a shot?

But Kid Win and Browbeat…

I'd known, when I let Dad talk me into this, that it wasn't going to be easy. I'd known there were going to be some problems, some clashes of personality, at least one of the Wards who wouldn't be able to get over the — admittedly horrible — experience of what I'd done to them as Khepri. I hadn't held any illusions that it would be sunshine and rainbows all the way through.

But I'd never really considered what to do about it. What I was going to do when I was confronted with the issue of actually trying to work with people who might hate me or even be so scared of me they couldn't be in the same room.

How was I supposed to fix this? How —

A knock came at my door and I startled, wiping frantically at my eyes in an attempt to remove any evidence I might have been crying. After a moment of hesitation, I walked over and pulled it open, looking straight into the face of a blond boy in Tinkertech armor, designed to look like medieval plate.

Vaguely, I recognized him as the boy Victoria Dallon had been sitting with at lunch, during that short week I spent at Arcadia. By the armor, I knew him to be Gallant.

He offered me a gentle smile. "You okay?"

It was probably supposed to be reassuring. But it wasn't, because of what it told me.

I grimaced. "You knew I was listening," I accused.

Of course he did. He was a Thinker with an extrasensory ability. I didn't know why I ever thought I had escaped his notice, eavesdropping on their conversation like that.

His smile turned sheepish and he rubbed at the back of his neck, embarrassed. "Yeah," he admitted. "You're a little harder to see than most people. A little muted, kind of. But I can still get at least a vague idea of what you're feeling. I'm sorry," he added as an apology, "but it's not really something I can turn off, you know?"

I wanted to be angry, but it wasn't like I had a leg to stand on, in this case. We'd both been invading privacy — him mine, and me the rest of the Wards team's.

"It's fine," I said, even though it really wasn't. If he could see my emotions, he probably knew it was a lie, and that only made me more frustrated and annoyed.

But he didn't call me out on it and he didn't get angry or frown. He kept that kind and friendly smile, as though it was his default expression.

"I meant it, though," he said. "Are you okay? I know it couldn't have been easy, hearing some of that stuff. Having to listen to people judge you for things you felt you had to do. Especially when they don't have all of the context."

I twitched. Did he know about Shadow Stalker? Had he heard everything about what had happened with Vista?

Who was I kidding? He was, at the very least, friends with Victoria Dallon. What I knew of her said she'd told him _day of_.

"I'm fine," I said. I doubted he believed me.

He just kept up that friendly, understanding smile.

"Don't take what Kid Win or Browbeat said too harshly," he said. "They're…scared. What happened that night… I don't think anyone came away from that without _some_ kind of baggage. Not even the pros."

I connected the dots.

"Battery?"

"Assault hasn't let her go on patrol without him since," Gallant confirmed gently. "What I'm trying to say is… It's fresh. And it was scary. What happened, I mean. What you did to everyone. Even if it was to save lives," he rushed to add, "it was…terrifying. They haven't had time to deal with it, yet, you know? Come to terms with it. Neither have you, I think."

I shifted uncomfortably, feeling suddenly naked under his gaze. Almost without my realizing it, my arms came up and crossed over my chest, like I was trying to hide behind them.

"There's nothing I can do about that," I told him, pointedly ignoring the last part.

"I think there is," he said kindly. "You just have to be kind. Open. Friendly. Make yourself seem approachable, normal, even vulnerable. Human, in other words. Maybe not _right away_. Give them some time to work through it. Space. You know? I think, eventually, they'll realize you're just like them: a cape who got put into a bad situation and dealt with it the only way you knew how."

"And you?" I countered. "You're not bothered by it at all?"

For the first time, his smile slipped. "I…won't say I walked away unaffected," he hedged. "I… Well. It wasn't… I didn't…"

He trailed off. I let out a short breath through my nose, not quite a snort.

"It was bad," he said after a moment. "Terrifying. Horrible. But…every time I think about it and want to be scared of you or hate you, I remember what happened before it. Watching a girl, alone in a sea of heroes, as her world crumbled around her. I remember that girl, and I remember that she was just as frightened and just as horrified as I was."

He smiled again. "And I say to myself, what kind of knight in shining armor would I be, how could I live up to my name, if I let one act of desperation color how I think of her?"

It startled a chuckle out of me. "That's it?"

"I think there's enough negativity in the world as it is," he said. "I think everyone, especially people in bad situations, deserve at least some positivity from me. Don't you think?"

 _I think you're not doing a half bad job of living up to that name of yours._

I closed my eyes, let out a slow sigh. "Thank you," I told him quietly, at length.

"Just give them a chance," he said again. "Let them get to know the girl behind the mask. Things will work out, I promise."

I wasn't quite so sure of that as he was. I wanted to believe it, I did, but I couldn't bring myself to. Neither I nor Khepri had ever been so fortunate.

"I'll try," I said anyway.

He smiled a little brighter. "That's all I ask."

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

 **Because the road ahead is a little rocky in places, but Gallant, at least, is a Good Guy.**

 **I thought about making this a straight Wards interlude, but it appealed to me more to have it be something Taylor overheard. It gave me a chance to explore the Wards' feelings on the Echidna fight _and_ make Taylor aware of where she stood with each of them.**

 **Next chapter is planning for Levi. The chapter after, Taylor and Amy have the heart to heart she had with Lisa last chapter. Somewhere after that, before Levi comes, we get the first interlude, "Falling Star."**

 **If you want to support me as a writer so I can pay my bills, I'm on P A treon (p a treon . com (slash) James_D_Fawkes), and if P a treon is too long term, you could buy me a ko-fi (ko-fi . com (slash) jamesdfawkes).**

 **Or if you want to commission something from me, check out my Deviant Art page to see my rates.**

 **As always, read, review, and enjoy.**


	64. Promise 7-3

**Promise 7.3**

With a heavy, final clunk, I set my creation down on Piggot's desk.

"I take it you didn't ask for this meeting first thing in the morning to offer me jewelry," Piggot said dryly. My lips pursed, but I held back any unfriendly retorts. She reached over and picked it up, examining it.

I had no idea what she was expecting, but she obviously didn't find it. If she thought it was going to be some kind of Tinkertech device, filled with complex mechanisms and futuristic technologies, then the unassuming piece of steel must have been incredibly underwhelming.

I'd wound up with another pendant. For no particular reason, really, except that it was easy enough to put on and take off and wouldn't need resizing for larger arms or fingers, the way a bracelet or ring might. It was something anyone could wear with little to no adjustment, and the effort involved in shaping the metal was miniscule.

Quite literally, minimum effort, maximum reward.

"And what am I looking at, exactly?" she asked when she was done.

"My plan for dealing with Leviathan," I told her firmly.

She looked back down at the pendant, then back up to me, and one eyebrow rose. "Explain."

I fidgeted a little. Maybe it was some bleedthrough from the casters I'd been using to iron out the details of this plan, but I wanted to start gesticulating with my hands and arms.

"I considered my options, and I decided the best strategy was to keep Leviathan from ever reaching the city, rather than trying to repel him once he already made landfall," I said. "That way, we never have to fight him and no one should be at any risk. A completely bloodless Endbringer battle."

Armsmaster scowled, an ugly expression that twisted his mouth and carved deep lines into his cheeks. He disapproved.

Khepri's knowledge told me immediately why: he was confident his nano-thorns could carry the day, that they would manage to kill Leviathan. Not only would one of the Endbringers be eliminated, but he would come out of it covered in glory as a nice side effect. It would be a gigantic win for the heroes and a nice boost to his career.

 _That_ insight into his character was a little jarring. Mostly because I couldn't see it. The man I'd met and the Armsmaster I knew — as little as I actually did — could be a little gruff and blunt, but he seemed like a fundamentally decent person.

Maybe the person Khepri knew had been the way he was because the way things had gone between them had drawn out all his worst parts. I wasn't really excited to find out how true that was.

Either way, I kind of agreed with him. Whatever might have happened, however things had shaken out in Khepri's future, if the alternative was to let a bunch of people be killed, then killing Leviathan would be a preferred outcome, even if the nano-thorns had failed in her version of things.

I would never accept the idea of "acceptable losses."

If Leviathan _did_ come, however? Then it would confirm that there were a lot scarier and more devastating things to worry about.

Piggot looked at me skeptically, lifting the pendant. "And _this_ is supposed to do that?"

"Not exactly," I answered. "That's just a…a kind of lodestone, a…a support item? For the…well, the spell I was going to use."

Piggot looked like she was trying very hard not to roll her eyes. Even Armsmaster was grimacing, like he wanted to say something but knew better than to actually say it.

"And what exactly is this…spell?" she asked.

 _Yes, I know, it sounds ridiculous, and I feel silly enough just saying it out loud._

I didn't know _why_. I'd long since grown used to my power's eccentricities. If my heroes said it was magic, then it was magic, and I wasn't going to try and prove them wrong. It seemed like a waste of focus and energy.

"It's an imitation of the most powerful defensive Noble Phantasm I know about," I said, "projected up and around the city from my castle's walls."

Piggot looked at me sharply. "Castle?"

 _Oh fuck._ I hadn't told them, had I?

 _Fuck_ , I hadn't thought about that. The PRT and Protectorate hadn't known about the castle that was, even now, sitting out in the bay, hidden beneath a couple hundred feet of ocean water. And there were probably a couple dozen laws that I'd broken in the process of building it that I hadn't thought about _then_ , either.

That…might be a little bit of a problem.

 _Understatement of the fucking century, there, Taylor._

"Can…we just pretend you didn't hear that?" I mumbled.

Her eyes narrowed as her brow drew down.

That was a no.

"I…built a castle under the bay, a few miles out from the shore. It's sitting on the ocean floor, about two hundred feet under the surface."

"You built an entire castle under the bay, in secret, in only a few months?" she demanded.

I held up a trio of three fingers.

"It was…more like three weeks," I admitted.

In the afternoons and on the weekends, mostly.

" _How_?"

There…was no good answer to that.

"…Magic?"

Piggot looked very much like she wanted to reach over her desk and strangle me.

"With _what_?" she asked through gritted teeth.

I looked away, cheeks burning. It didn't help; the only other thing to look at was the muscle jumping in Armsmaster's jaw and the twitch in his lips that spoke volumes about how frayed his self-control was becoming.

"…Magic?"

Splotches of red grew on Piggot's cheeks, and she let out a long, seething breath as she shut her eyes, as though not having to look at my face would help her regain some of her calm.

"I _meant_ ," she began, "with what _materials_?"

"I…don't know?" I told her sheepishly. "Sand and…water, I guess? Um, nothing from the Boat Graveyard or anything like that, if that's what you're asking."

I hadn't really bothered to consider it, at the time, where I was getting the materials for the bricks and mortar and pennants. I'd known I _was_ shaping something, but I'd been a bit preoccupied with things like, 'Holy shit, I'm building a castle!' I hadn't been thinking about where everything was coming from.

"That's impossible," Armsmaster burst out, unable to keep quiet anymore. "The composition and consistency of sand and silt is structurally unstable for something as mechanically stressed as a wall that has to bear a load of such a significant mass and weight! Even under ideal conditions, it would collapse under the pressure of the subsurface ocean currents, let alone the motion of the tides!"

All of which I had no answer to. Not a satisfying one, anyway. I'd certainly been the one to build the castle, there was no disputing that. But I'd used Nimue's power, and more importantly, Nimue's _knowledge_ , in order to do it. I could remember doing it, I could remember weaving the spells together, building that castle one step at a time. I could remember _what_ I'd done, but the details and the theory behind it, the finer points of _why_ I had to do this in that order, I had none of that, only vague impressions of knowledge.

"Look, I really don't understand how it works, only that it does," I admitted. "And anyway, is it even important? This was about fighting Leviathan."

Piggot's lips thinned, but she let it drop. "We'll discuss the issue of your flagrant disregard for government land and New Hampshire zoning laws later," she promised.

Armsmaster shifted, head whipping around. "Director…"

" _Later_." She turned back to me. "Now. You were saying? Something about projecting a spell up from your…castle walls?"

"It's…an imitation of the strongest defensive Noble Phantasm I know of," I picked up. "A barrier invoking the impenetrable walls of Camelot, an anti-siege type armament."

"Wait, hold on a moment," Piggot interrupted. "You've used that term several times, now. 'Noble Phantasm.' What _is_ that, exactly?"

I pursed my lips and considered how to describe it.

"It's the…I don't have a good word for it," I said. "Maybe…distillation. A legend or a deed or even just an attribute belonging to a hero, distilled into the form of…well, anything, really. Some of them are like blessings or curses, but most of them… Armaments, like swords or shields, or mounts, like chariots or reins."

"For example?"

"Excalibur," I answered immediately. "Or Herakles slaying the Hydra. The Twelve Labors. Cúchulainn's spear. Aífe's legend as a teacher, condensed into an ability that lets her teach others skills, even ones she has no right knowing. Hassan of the Hundred Faces having the ability to split off his splintered personalities into separate bodies. There's… I can't really think of a limit to _what_ a Noble Phantasm can be."

It boggled the mind when I considered it. The sheer _breadth_ of possibility, even amongst the relatively small number of heroes I'd used and experimented with.

"And this spell you want to use," she said, "it's an imitation of one of these…Noble Phantasms?"

"Lord Camelot," I affirmed. "A shield that can deploy a barrier, embodying the impenetrable walls of Camelot. It won't be… _quite_ the same. It's an imitation, so it would be less…potent. Less _real_. If, um, you think of the original as a solid structure, then the imitation would be hollow."

Hence why Lung, who had been borrowing the concept, the _idea_ of a dragon by taking its shape, had been enough of a dragon to be weakened by Balmung, but not so much of one that he'd been as powerful as the real deal.

"Hollow?" asked Piggot.

How to explain it? Papier mâché wasn't really a good metaphor, since it implied fragility, and even as an imitation, Lord Camelot would be anything _but_ fragile. Casting a metal frame wasn't that great a comparison, either, but maybe…

"Think of the spell like a steel mold," I said, "and the walls of my castle like ceramic blocks put inside it. Yes, the imitation is weaker, but with the castle walls to act as support to fill in the holes —"

"It can take impacts that would otherwise break it," said Armsmaster, realizing where I was going. "The underlying structure allows attacks to dissipate in ways they wouldn't if it were completely hollow."

I nodded.

"Exactly. Any deficiencies inherent in the imitation being an imitation are made up for by Castle Avalon bolstering it. It's still probably weaker than the original, but not as much so."

"I see," said Piggot. "And is there a reason why you can't just use the original…Noble Phantasm instead?"

I grimaced. "The…barrier manifests directly in front of the shield. If I wanted to get _all_ of the city, I'd have to be…basically standing in the middle of the bay."

Not…impossible. I _could_ give myself a waterwalking skill or something, but that would just go away when I Installed Galahad. I could Include instead, maybe? That solved the problem of walking on water, yeah. But I wasn't sure a Noble Phantasm that drew strength from the wielder's heart would work as well for me as for Galahad himself, who had been noble and steadfast to the end.

"Is there a reason you couldn't just stand on the Rig and deploy it there?" Piggot asked. There was something in her voice that said she thought I was being unnecessarily obtuse, or maybe implying I should have thought of that in the first place.

Maybe I should have.

Except, thinking about it now —

"She'd have to be standing essentially on the edge, or as close to it as physically possible," Armsmaster answered for me. "Otherwise, any part of the Rig that wasn't covered could be used by Leviathan to undermine her position. Like that, even the tiniest of slips could send her into the bay, leaving her at Leviathan's 'mercy.'"

That, basically. As far as I knew, Lord Camelot was a Noble Phantasm whose defense was just shy of absolute. It couldn't be pushed back, as long as the wielder's heart remained stalwart and unmoved. But it also did not magically allow the wielder to ignore the physics of the ground beneath your feet disappearing, and if I allowed even a moment of doubt to make my determination waver, that might be enough for Leviathan to knock me off balance.

I was not Galahad. Even when I was borrowing as much of his courage and wisdom as I could, I still wasn't him. I was just Taylor, pretending to be him. Even if his heart remained strong, mine could still falter.

There was also another problem.

"And even if that didn't happen, if Lord Camelot didn't work — for whatever reason — I'd be stranded out there," I added. "I could make it back on my own, sure, but Leviathan would make landfall long before I did."

Armsmaster nodded. "Which would mean we would be down a potent combatant. Any plan that relied upon her presence would risk immediate failure, should Leviathan force any other key personnel out of position."

"That's why I planned around the imitation, rather than the original," I said. "The original might be a surer bet, but the imitation would allow me to be in position to fight immediately if something goes wrong and it doesn't work."

"And what _does_ happen if this plan of yours fails?" asked Piggot. "If this…imitation noble phantasm of yours doesn't work or Leviathan breaks through it?"

I'd considered that possibility, too. It was why Lord Camelot — imitation or otherwise — was only Plan A.

"Then we do our best to herd him somewhere remote and trap him in place," I answered grimly, "and I'll use the strongest _offensive_ Noble Phantasm I know of to try and kill him. Preferably, before anyone gets hurt or killed."

The details of that would be…difficult. In terms of raw strength, I didn't know how the likes of Herakles, Gawain, or Siegfried compared to Alexandria, who _did_ have the sheer physical ability to move Leviathan at least a little and lift him off his feet.

But if raw strength failed, there were definitely a few conceptual options that could work. Anyone with a high enough aptitude for commanding beasts or a Noble Phantasm that performed the same function should do. Gawain and Medusa came to mind.

Armsmaster scowled. "And you can't use that Noble Phantasm _instead_ of the barrier, to kill him before he even reaches the city?"

"It's basically a gigantic, city-killing laser beam," I said, trying my best to keep sarcasm out of my voice. "It's costly, it's got a massive area of effect, and it's very, very noticeable. If the first hit isn't the last, then I _won't_ get a second chance."

Either because I would've pushed myself too far or because Leviathan would simply refuse to give me an opening to use it a second time. There were a number of ways he could do that, from just avoiding my line of sight to putting as many obstacles between us as possible.

Even for a chance at killing Leviathan, I wouldn't kill whoever he used as human shields in the process.

"City-killing?" he asked.

"It's used for wiping entire castles, fortifications and all, off the map in one go. Whatever's left definitely wouldn't be big enough to call a city, anymore."

"Hence why you will absolutely _not_ be using it inside the city," Piggot told me. There was something stern in her tone, like a reprimand. "Or anything _like_ it, for that matter."

"I hadn't planned on it," I said. "The idea was to only use it when the only things in my way were Leviathan and a whole lot of open sea."

"The ecological effects of flash-evaporating that much sea water," Armsmaster began.

"Can be worried about if and when they become a problem," Piggot cut across him, " _after_ Leviathan is either repelled or — and I can't believe I'm actually entertaining this — _eliminated_."

"I asked my power for heroes who could kill an Endbringer," I told her a little defensively.

"And your power is no more infallible than _you_ are," Piggot rebutted. "Trusting any answer you get from it to be perfect is, quite frankly, a trap _far_ too many capes fall into."

I held my tongue, because she was right; just because my passenger answered me with a small selection of heroes didn't mean those heroes were absolutely capable of doing what I'd asked for, no matter what.

 _Conditionally_ , certainly. But I hadn't specified conditions when I'd asked.

"So," Piggot went on, steering the subject back around, "the primary plan is a defensive barrier that should, _hopefully_ , block Leviathan from even getting close to the city. You still haven't explained why that needs _this_."

She jangled the pendant demonstratively.

I grimaced.

"The…the Noble Phantasm — and therefore the spell imitating it — draws strength from the wielder's heart. Um, metaphorical heart, that is. The stronger and steadier his…resolve is the best word I have, the stronger the barrier. "

Both of Piggot's eyebrows rose. _"Are you shitting me?"_ was written all over her face.

"I suppose I've heard more ridiculous conditions for powers to work on," she allowed. "Very well. And?"

"I'm…not Galahad," I admitted. "I don't have his…sureness and clarity of mind. Even with an Install — um, when I'm using all of his power, I mean — I'm not confident enough that I…"

That I wouldn't falter. That I wouldn't have a moment of doubt that would cause the whole thing to collapse. Any other time… Maybe. But I was still trying to draw the line between me and Khepri, and I didn't know that I could have the sheer confidence necessary when my head still wasn't on totally straight.

"So I made that," I went on, gesturing to the pendant, "and I was going to make a few others, so that the barrier wouldn't have to rely on one person's heart, but could draw strength from several."

"Splitting the burden in order to increase the efficiency and efficacy," Armsmaster noted with something like approval.

"It was the best solution I could come up with," I said.

"And how many of these did you intended to make?" Piggot asked.

"At least five," I told her. "But no more than seven."

Her eyes narrowed. I could almost see the cogs turning in her head, the suspicions that were percolating in her brain.

"The Wards," she accused.

"I thought about it," I confessed, "but no."

Because even before the conversation I'd heard last night, I'd come to realize some of the problems with the idea. The biggest issue was that they were teenagers, and teenagers were…kind of infamous for being insecure. Even if they were more mature than the average teenager, the Wards were still teenagers, and I'd eventually thought better of trusting them to have the confidence, surety, and mental fortitude necessary to hold the shape of something which took form based upon the strength of the heart.

After that conversation last night? Kid Win and Browbeat wouldn't be able to do it, because they wouldn't trust me enough for it to work. That had only made me more certain that the Wards shouldn't be the ones I gave these pendants to, the ones to whom I entrusted the task of powering Lord Camelot.

But the problem that had absolutely killed it? I'd realized that neither Piggot nor anyone else in a position to have a say about it would actually let me have the Wards do this.

"For several reasons," I went on, "but I knew you'd never let it happen. So."

Piggot huffed.

"You thought correctly," she said. "Was there anyone else you had in mind?"

I glanced at Armsmaster, who straightened, as he seemed to realize what I was thinking.

"Armsmaster. Legend. Alexandria." I had to keep myself from adding any emphasis to her name; much as I hated to admit it, Alexandria had a will of fucking _steel_. "Dauntless. Chevalier. Miss Militia, maybe."

If she didn't hate me, now. I hadn't been blind to how difficult she'd found it to even be in the same room as me; even if she didn't refuse outright, any uncertainty she had could undermine the whole thing.

"I don't have a huge list," I said. "I don't know enough Protectorate heroes well enough to come up with a comprehensive list of who has the strength of will to fill the role."

Piggot arched an eyebrow again.

"Not Eidolon?"

"I…don't know how his powers might interact with it," I lied. "Him being the only other Trump on anything like the same level as me. Figured it was safer not to take any chances."

Armsmaster shifted, but I slanted him a quick look, and he subsided, frowning. I didn't know if he still trusted me enough not to say anything, or if he'd report the lie the minute I left the room. I'd have to trust that he trusted that I had my reasons.

Eidolon was the one person I'd left out of the group of possible bearers immediately, without even really thinking about it. I hadn't even considered him an option, not once.

Because I could still remember him dying. Giving up, essentially. Being broken by what Scion had said.

He hadn't been the only one to give up, at the end, but he'd been one of our heaviest hitters, with more power than almost all the rest of us combined and the most reason to feel confident, and all it had taken to undo him was a few words. Just a sentence or two, and he'd entirely lost the will to fight.

I couldn't trust him to hold Lord Camelot. Not if whatever demons he had were that persuasive.

"While I'm not sure your logic holds, I don't see the issue in following your choices," Piggot reasoned. "It will, however, absolutely be on a volunteer basis. I will also be informing each candidate of the specifics of the situation, so that they can make an informed decision."

"That's fine," I said.

It might make me sound a bit kooky if she went into the whole "magic" thing, but as long as I had the people I needed, I wasn't super picky about whether or not people thought of me as strange. I mean, obviously, I would prefer they didn't, but as long as I was effective, the only people who might laugh were trolls on PHO.

"I'm perfectly willing to accept," Armsmaster said immediately.

Piggot did not look surprised. "Then you already have your first volunteer. I don't foresee most of the others refusing, either. Miss Militia, on the other hand…"

I closed my eyes briefly and let out a short sigh through my nostrils. "I understand."

She frowned. "I'll still ask," she promised, "but given the Echidna Incident, she may not accept."

Which was nothing I hadn't expected.

"With that in mind, let's discuss your Plan B," she said. She leaned forward, folding her hands on her desk. "Walk me through it."

"Herakles, Siegfried, or Gawain," I said. "One of those three, to push Leviathan into place."

"Any particular reason you chose those three?"

"They're three of the physically strongest heroes I have. Gawain especially, but there are caveats and conditions, and he'd tire me out the fastest."

Piggot's lips puckered thoughtfully. "Conditions?"

"Time of day and degree of sunlight," I answered. "He has a Noble Phantasm that invalidates those, but using it would likely speed up how quickly I tired by a factor of ten. Without either of those, he's about equal to the other two."

"And with it?"

"His performance triples across the board. Strength, speed, reaction time, durability — _everything_."

"But you're thinking you won't use him."

I frowned. "Probably not. The strain of using _his_ Noble Phantasm as well as Excalibur, especially back to back, would probably put me back in my bed for another week."

Gawain was, without a doubt, one of my costliest heroes. The Armor of Sunlight he'd received during the Rigomer adventure was without a doubt a trump card, since it allowed him to use Numeral of the Saint at any time in any condition, but the combination was as deadly to me as to anything I faced with it.

Just ten minutes using it would probably be like spending an entire day fighting Lung with Siegfried.

"Excalibur?"

"Part three of Plan B," I answered. "The gigantic, city-killing laser."

Piggot's eyebrows shot towards her hairline. " _Excalibur_ is the noble phantasm that shoots a giant laser beam?"

"I don't remember _that_ being part of the myth," Armsmaster mumbled.

"And Galatine fires a wave of solar plasma thirteen kilometers long," I said a little impatiently.

Yes, I was aware, not all of these things seemed to have any basis in the myths and legends we had. Yes, I was aware, some of these things were also incredibly ridiculous and didn't make loads of sense. Yes, I was aware, because I'd gone through a lot of the same disbelief way back when I'd first started experimenting with Installs and querying my power about these heroes.

Powers were bullshit. Sometimes, _my_ powers were _extra special_ bullshit. Could we just get past that and move on?

"Galatine?"

"The sword of Gawain," Armsmaster answered.

Probably had a search engine connected to his helmet. _I_ certainly hadn't heard about Galatine (or Arondight, for that matter) until I really started looking.

"Anyway," I said, "Excalibur is part three of Plan B. If it doesn't do the job and finish him off, then it'll at least do enough damage that Leviathan will likely retreat."

"Part three," Piggot repeated. "Yes. And part one is to move Leviathan into place with Herakles, Siegfried, or Gawain. Part two?"

"Holding him down, basically, so that I don't miss." I grimaced. "I… _could_ use Gleipnir again, maybe? I don't know how well they'd hold him."

"Gleipnir?"

"The chains used to bind the monster wolf, Fenrir, from Norse mythology," said Armsmaster. "Made from six impossible things, so that they were impossible to break. The sound of a cat's footfall, a woman's beard, the roots of a mountain —"

"Yes, I get the point." Piggot turned back to me. "You said 'again,' meaning you've used it before?"

I swallowed the explanation on my tongue — that it wasn't the _real_ Gleipnir, only a spell that embodied to concept — because it wasn't helpful and instead said, "On Noelle. Um, Echidna. It was before the Protectorate arrived; the only reason she got free was because Trickster teleported her out of it."

"But you aren't sure it could hold Leviathan."

"No. Not long enough, at least. I'd need about twenty or thirty seconds after he's trapped to get into position, switch to King Arthur, and charge up Excalibur. That doesn't work if Gleipnir breaks within ten. And Leviathan is a lot stronger than N…than Echidna was."

"So you would need something that could hold Leviathan in place for at least thirty seconds."

Armsmaster shifted, straightening. "Clockblocker. That's what you have in mind."

I hesitated, then nodded. "It was the only thing I could come up with," I admitted. "Anything I could make that could accomplish the same thing… It would take too much prepwork and too much effort to activate. I don't think I could have it ready for Sunday."

Even if I abandoned everything else and focused solely on just such a thing, three days wasn't enough time. Even if I worked as hard as possible, probably still not, and it would render the whole thing moot if I pushed myself so hard that I wouldn't have the energy to actually fight Leviathan, let alone use Excalibur.

It wasn't a matter of whether or not I _could_ make something to hold Leviathan in place. It wasn't even that Medea didn't have the kind of magic that could do it, either. It was that there was either not enough time or that it would start to unravel too quickly.

But Clockblocker could do it with just a tap, and whatever he froze was basically inviolable. I could remember, distinctly, how Khepri had used his powers in tandem with a line of silk to cut Echidna in half. If I bound all his limbs, then even if Leviathan tore himself free, he'd have to rip off his arms and legs to do it.

Piggot frowned. "Even if I could guarantee that he would be willing to participate," she began, "as a Ward, I cannot condone risking his life by having him get so close to an Endbringer."

"He wouldn't have to freeze Leviathan himself," I said. "He wouldn't even have to get close. He'd just have to tap whatever actually gets used. He could stand somewhere safe and Vista could reduce the distance to nothing for the split second needed."

Piggot's frown deepened. "What I said for Clockblocker, for Vista, it applies even more so."

"She won't stay behind," I pointed out. "She was there in Khepri's version of things, too."

The frown became a scowl. "We've been over the subject of Khepri and her reliability."

My lips pursed. "Then I guess we'll find out exactly how reliable she is in a few days."

Her eyebrows pulled together. "I suppose we will, won't we," she said. She leaned back. "I'll see what I can do. If Vista and Clockblocker are both allowed to attend, then I will agree to your plan of them working in tandem to freeze Leviathan's bindings. As a contingency," she added, "in case Eidolon is unable to do so, for whatever reason."

Not ideal. Maybe Khepri's memories were prejudicing me a little too much, but I didn't want to rely on Eidolon for anything, if I didn't have to.

"That's fine," I said instead.

"How do you intend to hold it?" Armsmaster interrupted.

Piggot and I both turned to him.

"Your plan is well-considered. Simple, yet effective," he allowed. "However, you still haven't given a definitive answer as to the method by which Leviathan would be bound."

"A good point," Piggot agreed, turning back to me. "If you don't intend to use your…Gleipnir, did you have any specific method in mind for holding Leviathan in place?"

I grimaced.

I…hadn't given it much thought, no. I'd been more preoccupied with the other details and forgotten to hammer out exactly how I was going to hold Leviathan in place for Clockblocker to freeze. What was going to be binding it. I had…kind of just _assumed_ there would be something.

Facing the question now, though… I _could_ just use Gleipnir, again. Maybe. Would it count as a single item for Clockblocker to freeze, or would each ribbon of the spell count as a separate item? I wasn't sure about that.

Medea… But the Atlas spell was air pressure. It was the weight of the atmosphere in its entirety pressing in from all sides. Ignoring that it would be awkward and probably impossible for Clockblocker (or Eidolon, however _he_ might do it) to freeze all that air, it would also defeat the point: if the spell locked Leviathan's entire body in place, then it would form a protective, time-locked shell and block Excalibur, or at least a portion of it.

Then perhaps instead of the more symbolic chains of Gleipnir, some literal chains should be used? Gawain had a Noble Phantasm that had once been used to bind a dragon and —

Chains.

"The Boat Graveyard," I realized.

Piggot's brow furrowed. "What?"

"The chains from the anchors of the ships in the Boat Graveyard," I clarified. "Actually, for that matter, I only need _one_. It would give us a place to put him, too — a place where no one and nothing of value is in the way, as long as I position everything right. I could set up a trap beforehand just off shore and move Leviathan into place…"

But Piggot was frowning.

"…What?"

"The ships of the Boat Graveyard are legally complicated," she said. "The ownership for some of them is contested. For others, the exact owner is difficult to determine, due to corporate mergers and businesses failing. Some of them were scheduled to be cleaned up years ago, but never were as a result of the logistical and technical hurdles involved. Legally, as Director of the PRT, East-Northeast Division, I cannot approve of any measure to remove or dispose of them."

I blinked. "What?"

"For that matter," added Armsmaster, "most of those ships have been exposed and left to rot for twenty years or more. Exposure to saltwater has likely corroded their anchor chains into uselessness."

"Fixing that is the work of an afternoon," I waved it off irritatedly. Any alchemist in my repertoire could do it easily. "Are you seriously telling me that this plan won't work because a bunch of guys in suits three-hundred miles away are going to complain about the ships they abandoned being atomized in the process?"

Piggot's lips pursed. "I don't appreciate that tone."

I scowled and very pointedly didn't apologize. Her eyes narrowed at me, but she didn't pursue the point, for now.

"I'm saying," she said, "that while I can approve the plan as a whole, this particular provision of it is something I am _legally_ unable to sign off on."

"Then…"

"And if one of my Wards was to account for that and add such a provision secretly," she went on, "set it up in her free time rather than when she was on the clock and under my supervision, and implement it without my permission, then I would most certainly have to reprimand her after the fact, but I would be unable to stop her beforehand."

My brow furrowed.

 _Message received, Director._

I chanced a glance at Armsmaster, and he was frowning, but he hadn't protested the subterfuge and didn't look like he had any argument against it.

"I understand."

"Good." Piggot nodded grimly. "Now, did you have any further contingencies?"

I worked my jaw. "Not…really. If Excalibur doesn't work, there are a couple of other things I might be able to try, but the odds of their success aren't much higher. Most likely, I'd stick with King Arthur and keep fighting until we managed to drive Leviathan off."

"In other words, the standard plan for every other Endbringer fight on record," Piggot commented dryly. She picked up a pen and started jotting something down on a notepad. "Very well. I'll approve your plan provisionally and run it by the other Directors. In the meantime, I'd suggest you start preparing; we only have three days, after all."

She tossed me the pendant I'd set on her desk, and I had to scramble to catch it.

"Um, Director, there's one last thing," I began.

"Yes?" she asked.

I took a breath and steeled my nerves. "I'd like to start training the Wards."

Armsmaster frowned. "Mock missions will be suspended pending the resolution of the Leviathan attack, but joint training sessions will continue until —"

"Not _with_ the Wards," I corrected. "Training them. Teaching them. Using Aífe's Noble Phantasm."

It was a gamble. Not only on how much I could or couldn't trust the Wards themselves, but because of just how this might be taken.

There were two prominent examples of capes who either granted powers or taught others using their powers. One was Teacher, whose powers were well-documented for their addictive properties and how they twisted the "student" into his willing slave. The other was Crane the Harmonious, who had kidnapped kids, taught them martial arts, and brainwashed them into something like a cult.

Both were in the Birdcage.

Piggot's brow furrowed.

"What did you have in mind?"

"The martial arts of the ancient Celts," I answered. "I want them each to have a Brute and Mover rating before Sunday."

And with only those two as examples, Piggot might think Aífe's power did the same. Whether or not she thought I _knew_ it did depended on just how charitably she viewed me.

She paused a moment, seemed to mull it over, then leaned forward, frowning. "I'm not going to agree to anything until I see a demonstration."

But if she was willing to go that far, instead of shutting the idea down immediately? That was as good as permission.

"If you have a big enough room and some spare sheet metal," I told her, "then I'd be happy to give you one."

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

 **6000 words of planning.**

 **Which means now that the plan has been described, it has to go horribly, horribly wrong, right?**

 **I wasn't sure whether Lord Camelot's barrier could be shaped, and I never got an answer from my Nasuverse lorekeeper, so I erred on the side of "no."**

 **Also, Taylor, you should start your own line of jewelry.**

 **If you want to support me as a writer so I can pay my bills, I'm on P A treon (p a treon . com (slash) James_D_Fawkes), and if P a treon is too long term, you could buy me a ko-fi (ko-fi . com (slash) jamesdfawkes).**

 **Or if you want to commission something from me, check out my Deviant Art page to see my rates.**

 **As always, read, review, and enjoy.**


	65. Promise 7-4

**Promise 7.4**

I left the meeting with Director Piggot with an appointment of a kind scheduled for later in the day, so that I could demonstrate my Celtic martial arts and Aífe's Noble Phantasm to her, and the promise that whatever was leftover afterwards was mine to do with as I pleased — to make more links in the chain for my imitation of Lord Camelot.

As for preparing the spell itself, that would have to wait until all of the paperwork was finished processing and I could officially leave the building; they weren't even letting me out to go to _school_ , which said something about how seriously they were taking this "protective custody" thing. I wasn't willing to try pushing the boundaries just yet by doing something like sneaking out.

So, without much of anything else to do in the meantime, I made my way back to the Wards section of the building. I still hadn't talked to any of them since my brief conversation with Gallant the night before, and when the retina scanner chimed its acceptance and the metal doors whirred open, I found it almost entirely empty. The others had probably already left for the day to go to school.

All except for Dennis, who had hastily tried to slip on a spare mask — and failed, leaving the thing crooked — and had a piece of toast hanging from his mouth.

For a few, short seconds, he just blinked at me, then he grabbed his toast, bit off the section in his mouth, and ate it, before offering a kind of half-hearted, "Good morning."

"…Morning," I replied.

"Car — ah, I mean, Aegis and the others already left for school," he told me, "so if you're looking for any of them, that's where they are."

"Oh," I said, like I hadn't figured that out, before. "And, um, you?"

Fuck, I was bad at small talk.

"Me?" he parrotted.

"Aren't you going to school, too?"

"Oh. Yeah," he said. "Um, I just live closest to here, so I can take my time a little bit more, you know? Sleep in a little."

"Oh."

"Oh."

A long silence stretched between us, and we both fidgeted, trying to come up with something to fill it. Dennis, at least, had his breakfast, so he had that as an excuse not to say anything, and he was taking full advantage of it to slowly chew on his toast. Me, I wasn't that lucky, so I had to stand there awkwardly, wracking my brain for something intelligent to say that wasn't commenting on the weather.

Finally, Dennis let out a sigh and gestured to his lopsided mask. "Can I take this thing off? I feel kinda ridiculous."

"Oh. Yeah, sure," I said. "I know who you are."

That…sounded better in my head. Out loud, it probably made me seem like a stalker.

"Well, I wasn't exactly trying to keep it a secret, back then. I was a little more concerned with other stuff," he said with a smile as he pulled off the mask. "Maybe we should do it properly this time, though? Hi, I'm Dennis, but you already knew that. I'm seventeen, an official, card-carrying superhero, and I like pina coladas and getting caught in the rain."

My lips twitched, and for a moment, I wanted to smile. It wasn't funny, exactly, but it was approachable and friendly and _normal_ , and it was completely unlike Gallant, who could avoid pitfalls and awkwardness and know what he needed to say because he could _literally_ read the mood. Paradoxically, it was _more_ difficult to open up to someone who could actually see through you.

It was also a little hard to reconcile with the Dennis who had first shown up at the table with Amy and I, tossing out jokes and memes and making references that went right over my head. If I had to guess, I would have said that he'd been trying too hard, back then, because he'd been trying to drop hints all over the place that I just hadn't caught.

I decided to humor him.

"Hello, Dennis," I said. "I'm Taylor, but you also already knew that. I'm about a month away from sixteen, and I'm also now an official, card-carrying superhero. I like long walks on the beach and candlelit dinners for two."

I felt a little bit silly saying it, but it seemed to amuse Dennis, because he grinned and chuckled.

"Whoa, there, that's going a little fast, don't you think?" he said, laughter in his voice. "Talking about long walks and candlelit dinners? Let's get to know each other a little bit, first!"

I floundered a bit and my cheeks began to warm. "I-I didn't mean…"

"Hey, hey, relax a little. I'm joking."

I flushed.

"You seem to do that a lot," I mumbled pathetically.

 _Yes, Taylor, and the sky is also blue, and the grass is also green._

He shrugged.

"Seems like a better idea than being dour and miserable all the time, you know? If nobody told a joke and everyone was serious, all day, every day, then we'd all be just like… Well. You-know-who."

For a second, I didn't. It actually took me a moment to figure out who he was talking about.

"You can say her name, you know," I told him.

He shrugged again, awkwardly.

"I…wasn't sure," he admitted. "Considering…well, everything. I think _I'd_ certainly never want to hear her name again, in your shoes."

I didn't, if I was totally honest, but I wasn't about to flip out or start cringing away from it. I was done giving her that kind of power over me, especially since she was dead.

"No," I agreed, "but I'm not going to bite your head off about it. It's not like you're trying to defend her or anything."

He laughed a little.

" _Wow_ , no. She was hot, I'm not gonna pretend that she wasn't, but she had the _worst_ personality. Total bitch, you know? Like, the complete opposite of a butterface."

My brow furrowed. What?

"Butterface?"

Dennis' expression froze as though he'd just realized what he'd said, and then he cringed.

"It's, um, a slang term that some guys use," he admitted reluctantly. "It means, um, well, that, uh, everything else about a girl is great, but her face."

I felt my eyebrows start to rise.

"It can be used for guys, too!" he rushed to add. "And, uh, I meant that Sophia was hot and pretty and everything about her was great, except for her personality, because that was garbage and she was mean, and she may have been hot but she was about as friendly as cranky alligator and I'm going to shut up now so I can stop digging myself deeper into this hole."

He cut himself off there, cheeks flushed and eyes wide.

After a moment, I said, "Butterface, huh?"

Dennis let out an explosive sigh. "Can…we just pretend I didn't say that? It's slang and it's stupid and I don't usually say stuff like that, but it popped into my head."

"You're right, she _was_ hot and she _did_ have a pretty face, too," I agreed at length. A little smirk curled at the edges of my lips. "But even if she'd been less of a bitch, I don't think she would've given you a shot. I'm pretty sure she played for a different team."

It was petty and it was mean, and fuck, it felt good to take a jab at her, like that.

Dennis blinked, then grinned. "You think? I kinda wondered, because, I mean, not to toot my own horn or anything, but most of us Wards are in pretty good shape, and, well, from a straight man's perspective, I can admit that Aegis and Gallant are pretty good looking. But she never gave any of us a second look, so…"

 _No_ , I thought, _she was too busy ogling Brian to pay any attention to you guys._

A muscle in my cheek jumped, and I reminded myself: that _hadn't happened_ , here. I hadn't gone out with Brian, I hadn't been on the bus with him, and Sophia hadn't gotten jealous and tried to beat me up because of it.

"Have you seen Amy?" I asked, changing the subject. "I have something I need to talk to her about."

"Amy?" Dennis parrotted. "Yeah. Uh, last I heard, she was heading to the cafeteria for breakfast. That was about…ten, fifteen minutes ago?"

Good. I wouldn't have to search the whole damn building for her.

"She getting ready to go to school?"

Dennis grimaced.

"Um, no, not, uh, not really. She's been kinda…not going, the last two weeks? Since the thing that night, I mean, because things are a little…you know. _Tense_. Between her and the rest of her family."

Translation: she and Vicky were still fighting over her healing Brandish.

"She's been here the whole time," he went on. "I don't think she's actually left the building, since then."

 _Oh, Amy…_

"All right," I said. "I'm going to go talk to her, then. It was…nice seeing you, Dennis," I added awkwardly, for lack of anything better to say.

I made to turn and leave.

"Wait!"

I stumbled and landed strangely as I tried to walk away and turn back towards him simultaneously.

"Yes?"

"There was, um, something I wanted to ask you," he said a little uncertainly.

I turned back to face him fully. "Yeah?"

He didn't answer immediately. He frowned, looking away, and fidgeted a little, like he was trying to find the right words. I saw him glance down at his half-eaten breakfast a few times, too, before he finally looked back up and, squaring his shoulders, stared me straight in the eyes.

It was like he was preparing himself to go into battle.

"Do you want to go out with me?"

Everything stopped. My heart, my brain, my lungs, they all stuttered to a halt as I tried to process those words. I blinked at him stupidly, like I was some kind of witless fish.

"What?" I asked lamely.

"Do you want to go out with me?" he said again, a little bit less confident this time. "This Saturday."

"I… I don't…"

I struggled to wrap my head around the idea, but all I was getting was the mental equivalent of 404 errors.

Guys _didn't_ ask me out. They never had. Even back before Mom died and I was just starting to figure out the idea behind the whole dating thing, it had always been Emma who got the attention from our male classmates, because she was the pretty one, the one with the modelling prospects and the vivid red hair.

No boy had ever asked me on a date, before, and after Emma turned on me, none of them would have dared try, if they had ever been interested. The closest I'd ever gotten was Greg Veder, and Greg was… Well. He was the sort of boy who had no idea how to talk to a girl, so he was easily impressed when one gave him something as simple as the time of day.

"No pressure," Dennis hurried to say. "Don't feel like you have to or anything, if you don't want to. Or…you don't even have to think of it as a date, really. We can just go as friends, getting to know each other better. It could be a teambuilding exercise, just for —"

"No," I interrupted him.

He stopped, face twisting into something between confusion and disappointment. "No, you don't want to, or no, you'd be happy to?"

"It's fine," I said.

I almost rejected him out of hand. For a lot of different reasons, really. For one, well, Dennis wasn't really the kind of guy that I would have said was my "type" four months ago. His features were a bit softer, a bit closer to guys like Leonardo DiCaprio, compared to the lantern-jawed ideal that existed in my head. He wasn't quite a pretty boy, but he was no manly heartthrob, either.

And considering Medea's Jason — asshole extraordinaire — was a pretty boy, it just put me off the look even more.

For another, I mean, Leviathan would be here in about three days. Even if I could fit it into my schedule between all the work I'd be doing in that time, during preparations for an Endbringer battle — you know, the creatures so named because they were _apocalyptic forces of nature_ — seemed like a bad moment to be going on dates.

And… And some part of me thought that this was either a trick or a pity date, meant either to humiliate me or make up for the other Wards' attitudes toward me, particularly Browbeat and Kid Win. The former was a suspicion left over from the paranoia of my treatment at the Trio's hands, and I recognized that it wasn't a rational response, exactly, even though I couldn't shake it that easily, but the latter was very much a possibility, and I didn't want a pity date.

But… In spite of that…

"I think I'd like that," I told him, mustering a smile. I had no idea if it was convincing enough, but if it wasn't, he didn't let on that he knew.

"Really?" he asked, smiling.

I nodded. "Yeah."

"Okay. Okay!" He laughed. "It's a date, then!"

No. Those were all really good reasons why I shouldn't.

But maybe…maybe it was a good idea, anyway. Because there was no telling what would happen, come Sunday. There was no telling if either of us would survive the fight, even if I was going to do my absolute damnedest to ensure _nobody_ died. I could at least give him this, couldn't I?

And… And it would probably be a good idea to decompress, a little. Relax. Get my mind cleared, so that I could sleep well and devote the entirety of my focus to the fight the next day. Wasn't that something Doctor Yamada had said was important, once upon a time? Taking a day to just…let it all go?

This could be good. A way to forget about all of my troubles for a few hours.

"Sure," I said. "It's a date."

And it wasn't like we were pledging undying love or committing to marriage or anything. It was just a date.

"Yes!" he cheered. Then, he glanced at the clock, and the flush of happiness drained from his cheeks as his face dropped. "Oh, fuck, no! I'm gonna be late!"

He turned back to his breakfast, wolfed down his omelet with all the speed of a teenage boy in a hurry, gulped down his glass of orange juice, and then he rushed off, stopping only long enough to boldly plant a featherlight kiss on my cheek.

"Saturday!" he promised as the doors whirred shut behind him.

I lifted my hand, tracing my fingertips over the spot where he'd kissed me. It tingled faintly, a sort of phantom sensation that wasn't good or bad, it just was.

I…didn't know what to think of it. I didn't know if there was anything I _should_ think of it.

"Saturday," I echoed quietly.

In the end, the reason why I'd accepted mostly came down to something really simple: he wasn't Brian. He wasn't _Grue_.

And maybe that was a terrible reason to date someone, but it made sense to me. Because dating Dennis? _Wasn't_ Khepri.

"Okay," I mumbled, giving myself a figurative shake of the head. "Let's go talk to Amy."

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

The cafeteria wasn't quite empty when I made my way down there, but it wasn't full, either. The smell of food, hot and freshly cooked, wafted from the adjoined kitchen, and while large swathes of tables were barren, smatterings of PRT agents huddled together with trays of bagels and bacon and cups of coffee.

Some of them were undoubtedly coming off of a so-called graveyard shift, getting a final pick-me-up before they headed home to sleep. Others, they were starting their days and getting ready to go on call or out for patrol. I even saw a few who were half decked out in gear and armor, stripped of the padding, helmets, and bulletproof vests, but still dressed in the chain mesh undersuit.

Amy sat alone amongst them, singled out for her solitude at an otherwise empty table in the far corner. In a sea of bodies dressed in navy blues and blacks, her red cardigan and faded blue jeans stood out like a traffic light, a beacon.

I got a few side-looks as I walked over to her in full costume, and a couple of agents muttered as I passed, shifting as though to prepare to foam me, but I made it over to her otherwise unaccosted. She was playing with her half-eaten food as I came upon her, pushing the last remaining bit of some scrambled eggs around her plate absentmindedly.

"Amy."

She jolted when I set my hand on her shoulder, and her plate screeched as her fork skittered across it with a sound like nails on a chalkboard. I heard a few discontented murmurs from the nearest table.

Amy turned to me and blinked up into my lenses.

"Jesus H Christ," she muttered. "You just about scared the shit out of me, Taylor."

I nodded my head towards her food. "You finished eating?"

She glanced back down at what was left: that little bit of scrambled egg, half a strip of bacon, and an almost empty glass of milk, then sighed.

"Yeah," she said. "Yeah, I think I'm done."

Under her breath, I heard her add, "Wasn't all that hungry to begin with."

My lips tightened, but I didn't comment on it. The middle of an open cafeteria wasn't exactly the best place to air all of her issues.

"Can we…talk?" I asked.

"Talk?"

She glanced at the seat across from her, which was as empty as the rest of her table.

"In private," I added.

"Yeah," she said, sighing again. "Sure."

She dropped her fork onto the tray with a metallic clatter and pushed herself to her feet. For the first time, I was really struck by how much shorter than me she was — had to be at least half a foot. With the way she slouched, as though carrying a great weight on her shoulders, it seemed even more pronounced.

I jerked my head in the direction of the door. "There's a conference room we could use just down the hall."

"Sure. That's fine."

"Let's go," I said.

Amy fell into step with me wordlessly.

Once we were there and the door was closed, I let out a sigh of my own and dropped out of my costume, into my normal clothes. It was going to take some getting used to, walking around all over the place while hiding my identity.

When I turned back to Amy, she was reaching for her pocket, froze halfway there, then sighed again and let her hands drop, like she didn't have any idea what else to do with them.

"How are you?" I asked, but it was a stupid question; she looked up at me with a dead-eyed stare over the dark bruises under her eyes, and there was this indescribable quality about her — a kind of aura, or maybe just a culmination of a dozen different little cues, that said she was completely exhausted.

"Fine," was her curt reply.

I cringed.

Freaked-out, insecure, neurotic, and emotional.

I knew her tone well. I'd used it for the better part of two years, every time Dad asked the same question. I knew it meant she was anything _but_.

"How are you, really?"

"I said I'm fine," she snapped back at me.

"Amy…If there's something you want to talk about…"

"Oh, fuck you!" she snarled. "If I wanted to have my fucking brain picked apart, I'd go and talk to fucking Tattletale!"

"I'm not going to yell back at you," I told her calmly but firmly. "If you want to shout at me for a little while, get some stuff off your chest, go ahead. Let it all out."

"Fuck off! I said I'm fine! I'm not gonna stand here and listen to someone else try and act like my psychiatrist! If that's what you want, then you can just turn a-fucking-round and leave!"

"No," I said.

"The fuck did you just say?"

"No, I'm not going to leave," I repeated. "You're my friend, Amy."

For a moment, she stared at me, brow furrowed, a look of uncomprehension on her face, like I'd tried speaking to her in a foreign language.

"Bottling everything up just makes you miserable," I went on. "Take it from the queen of bottling shit up. I tried it for about two years and it never made anything better."

Something in her expression flickered.

"You have to face your problems," I said, feeling like I was parroting Doctor Yamada. "If you try to run away from them, then all that'll happen is you'll be too exhausted to deal with them when they catch up with you."

Amy looked away from me.

"Is that what happened with you?" she asked quietly.

My heart skipped a beat.

"What?"

"That night, in the Trainyard," she clarified. "With Noelle. Fuck, Echidna, I mean."

"Noelle," I corrected her firmly. "Call her Noelle. Not that dehumanizing label."

"Noelle, then," she agreed. "So?"

I took a deep breath in through my nose, let it out slow.

"Yes, Amy," I confessed to her gravely. "Yes. What happened that night in the Trainyard, that was me being forced to confront something I was running away from. Everything that went wrong that night went wrong because I was too scared to face my problems and actually deal with them."

"So it's true, then?" she asked. "That hero you used that night, the one that took control of everyone, the one in the black and white costume, with the cape, that was a version of you from the future?"

A part of me wanted to lie — wanted, even now, to deny Khepri's existence. But that was just mental inertia, a way of thinking that had been my default for almost four months.

"Yes," I admitted, frowning. "Tattletale?"

"She just filled in the blanks," Amy confirmed. "But…that hero, she _looked_ like you. She _talked_ like you. Same face, same eyes, same hair, same voice, same…" She trailed off. "There weren't… I didn't have any ideas that made more sense."

Under her breath, she added, "Not like this one makes a whole lot of sense, either."

"Khepri was the name they gave her," I explained. "Yes, Amy. She's a version of me that I could have become, for want of a nail. She was the first hero I ever used. She came to me in the Locker, during my Trigger Event — and in that moment, she nearly took me over. I've been running away from her, and everything she represented, ever since."

"Why?" Amy asked, but she sounded like she already knew the answer.

"Because the only thing you can do when faced with your worst mistakes is look away," I told her. "Khepri…she showed me what I could become, at my worst. She was a spotlight on all of the parts of myself that I didn't want to believe I had. She was a roadmap for all of the terrible decisions I could make and all of the ways I could rationalize making them."

I smiled a little without happiness or mirth. "She was who I could become, and who I absolutely didn't want to be. Because she may have saved the world, but she turned herself into a monster to do it."

"A future version of you, huh…" Amy mumbled. "Does that mean…all of those heroes you use, they were real people, once?"

"I don't know. Some of them were, at least. Even then, for those who were, how much they've been changed by the myths and legends told about them after they died, that's something I don't have the answer to, either."

Everyone I'd used took their abilities for granted. Medea remembered learning magic. King Arthur remembered wielding Excalibur against enemy armies, against a _dragon_. Galahad remembered acquiring the Holy Grail. Nimue remembered her tutelage under Merlin. Aífe remembered training her students in martial techniques that even the fittest of modern men would be utterly incapable of.

The reality of their existences was something I couldn't answer, and the existential questions that arose from them were ones I didn't care to explore, anyway.

"And…time doesn't matter, either," Amy reasoned, "not if you have a version of yourself from the future. So…as long as someone became celebrated as a hero…or even a villain, right? You have villains in there, too? People who did incredible but terrible things?"

The semantics of it were messier — everyone was technically the hero of their own stories — but if you had to simplify it…

"Yes. As long as they were talked about, as long as their stories were transmitted and spread throughout the people, then even those who were called villains are in my repertoire."

Because that included Medea and people like her.

"Amy," I said, "this conversation wasn't supposed to just be about me."

Liar. The major thing I meant to discuss with her today was this very thing.

She scowled. "Are you going to try and get me to talk about my feelings and my argument with Vicky? Because if you are, I already told you to fuck off with that. Gallant tried that, too."

"No," I said, even though that was a lie, too, "because I already know what your argument is about."

Her expression closed off. "You do."

"You told me the other day, remember?" I reminded her. "You're scared of doing brains. That's why you don't want to heal Brandish's brain damage. Because the idea of exactly what you can do to someone by messing up their brain just the tiniest bit frightens you."

"Right," she muttered. "Yeah, I _did_ tell you about all of that."

"I can heal Brandish," I told her.

She blinked at me, nonplussed.

"What?"

"I can heal Brandish," I repeated, "but I think…maybe I shouldn't."

Her expression twisted; her eyes went wide and her lips started to curl. " _What_?"

I looked her right in the eyes. "I think _you_ should do it."

"No," she spat immediately, "no, fuck you, fuck you and the horse you fucking _rode in on_ , you don't just get to —"

"So you're just going to keep running away from it?" I cut across her. "You're going to let a fear of what _could_ happen and the person you _could_ become ruin your life? Because that's what you're doing, right now. You're doing the same thing I did, only you're not running from a defined, concrete future, you're running from an abstract, shapeless fear of a future that you don't know even exists."

I hesitated a moment, then reached out and set my hands on her shoulders. Amy flinched, but didn't pull away.

"You can't run away from it forever, Amy," I told her solemnly. "At some point, you'll be backed into a corner. Someone you care about will be hurt, and the only way to save them will be to break your rules. Do you think it'll be better, when it happens then? Do you think you'll be making better decisions, when the pressure is on and life is on the line and there's no time to be careful and meticulous?"

Softer, gentler, I added, "Wouldn't it be better to do it in a time and place where none of that pressure is on you? Where you can take your time and do it right?"

She looked down and away, and for a long moment, she didn't say anything.

"…You have me in there, right?" she asked in a small voice.

I stilled.

"What?"

 _Don't be asking what I think you're asking, Amy._

"You have some version of me in there, right?" She turned her head back up to face me. "An Amy Dallon who…who threw away her rules and made something of herself with her powers?"

I closed my eyes briefly. Took a breath. "Don't do this to yourself, Amy. Thinking of the future as inevitable only makes you miserable."

I didn't have a leg to stand on, she was right. Not when I hadn't yet worked through all of my issues with Khepri. That didn't mean I would wish those same problems on her.

"Show me," she said, ignoring my advice. "You want me to break my rules and heal Carol? Show me what happens when I do that."

For a long, tense moment, I stared at her, considering it. I thought about the idea long and hard, about showing her exactly who she could become in the future, exactly the trials and tribulations she went through as a result of all of the decisions she made — decisions that, now, she might never make anyway. I wondered if it would really be all that bad an idea to show her that future, even if only to help her avoid it.

I even got so far as reaching out for her, for the Amy who became a Heroic Spirit in a distant, alternate future —

 _No_.

And I realized, showing Amy that version of herself, the one she would have become in Khepri's world, that was the absolute last thing I should do, right now.

Instead, as though summoned by my aborted reach for that future Amy, a familiar presence prodded, gentle but insistent, at the edge of my mind. My first instinct was to push her away, but after a moment of consideration, I braced myself, and for the first time, I willingly let her in.

 _Help me help her_ , I told Khepri.

And unlike the last two times, Khepri settled in, a featherlight nudge at the back of my head, carefully steering the direction of my thoughts, rather than the overwhelming domination she'd been before.

"I can't," I told Amy.

"What do you mean, can't?" she demanded.

"Because it wouldn't be you," I said. "It would be a…another Amy, a different Amy. She wouldn't have made the same decisions or mistakes or lived the same life as you will. It'd be the same as me and Khepri — someone you _could_ have been, if only things had gone differently." After a moment, I added, quietly, "If only you hadn't had me."

"You?"

"Khepri and the Amy in her life were never friends," I admitted. "Khepri… Some of the things Khepri did, they only made things worse for her Amy. Only pushed her to make worse decisions. The Amy Dallon of that world, that timeline, the life she lived was one where she had no one she could rely on and no one to stand by her. Not even the sister she loved so much."

Because Khepri and the Undersiders had helped destroy that, too. Maybe it hadn't been the _one_ thing, the _only_ thing, but the beginnings of that wedge had been sharpened by the things that had happened in the bank, during that ill-fated confrontation between Vicky and Amy and Tattletale and Khepri.

Amy's eyes went wide. "You… You can't mean…"

"That Amy had a lot of…of regrets," I went on. "She made a lot of mistakes. She did a lot of things she hated herself for, and she punished herself for them, too. I… One of the things Khepri regretted was that she wasn't able to do more to help that Amy."

There had never been any time for it. Never a moment where it had been possible to reach out to Amy and help her, for one reason or another. Whether it was just because there were so many other things going on or because it was the middle of a fight or just…not being able to focus on it, Khepri had never been able to help Amy.

Not even in the moment where she needed it most.

I offered Amy the brightest smile I could. "But I'm not Khepri, and you're not that Amy. You don't have to be alone, and you don't have to make those decisions alone. You have me to rely on. You have me to stand beside you. And you have me to pick you up if you stumble and fall, okay?"

Tears gathered in the corner of Amy's eyes, and she reached up to wipe them away as she sniffled. "You're so fucking cheesy," she said, but it lacked any heat.

And all the other times? Amy… _That_ Amy would never have accepted it. Because their first interaction together was as enemies, and it was one that had done irrevocable damage.

I didn't reply to that. "You can't keep running away from the things you're afraid of. Eventually, they'll catch up to you, and you won't be prepared to face them. But…when you _do_ face them, when you're ready to face them…I'll be there to face them with you."

She sniffled again, shaking her head. "I-I don't know… I d-don't think I… I can't…"

I hesitated a moment. Khepri directed me, and I had a quick, blink-and-you'll-miss-it flash of a woman with Asian features smiling, before she pulled the memory back like she was reeling in a fish.

"If you can't do it now," I allowed, "then I'll heal Brandish. And when you're ready to meet those fears face to face, I'll be there to help you."

Amy offered me a half-hearted but grateful smile. "Th-thank you."

I let out an internal breath of relief, and to Khepri, I gave my own silent, _Thank you_. Then, she slipped away, and I was alone again in my own head.

I still didn't know if my friendship with Amy was built upon my own feelings. I didn't know if it was Khepri's guilt that drove me, for not helping her timeline's version of Amy Dallon. What I did know was that I'd regret it if I just turned my back on her, here. I would be making Khepri's mistake, again, by not being there to help her keep herself together.

Even if this wasn't quite real, even if it wasn't all me, for Amy's sake, I couldn't abandon her, here.

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

 **Shipping goggles...well, actually, don't activate. In fact, when you read Taylor's actual reason for going on that date with Dennis — hinted at here, but not elaborated on — you might want to call her a bitch, because it's nowhere near as simple as, "Sure, I like you well enough; let's give it a try."**

 **If you want to support me as a writer so I can pay my bills, I'm on P A treon (p a treon . com (slash) James_D_Fawkes), and if P a treon is too long term, you could buy me a ko-fi (ko-fi . com (slash) jamesdfawkes).**

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 **As always, read, review, and enjoy.**


	66. Interlude 7-a: Falling Star

**Interlude 7.a: Falling Star**

For Kayden Russel, there was nothing particularly unusual about taking the bus.

She did it every day, after all. It was how she got to work, how she got to the mall, how she got to the Boardwalk, how she got to the store to buy groceries, and so on. Anytime she went somewhere that wasn't within walking distance, she took the bus to get there. That was how things had to be, when you were trying to raise a child and a car was too much of a luxury to justify. Kayden had gotten used to it.

That didn't mean she had to _like_ it.

After all, the bus stopped at many, many places throughout the city. That was fine when it stayed to the best part of town, where all of the well-to-do people lived, and every face Kayden saw was one she could implicitly trust. When it stayed in places where she only ever had to come face to face with her own people.

Some of those people were even her friends, after a fashion. She could talk to them, laugh with them, complain to them. They were _safe_. She could smile and relax and didn't have to worry.

It got uncomfortable when she had to go farther out and the bus started to pick up the _other_ kinds of people. The _wrong_ kind. The kind she couldn't trust, that lived in poorer neighborhoods, where so many belonged to a gang. The kind she always worried about, that had her nervously wondering which was a murderer or a rapist and which would try to mug her or kill her or…

Sometimes, it got to be too much, and she _had_ to get away from them. _Those_ people. The dangerous ones.

Asians. Hispanics. Blacks.

Chinks. Spics. _Niggers_.

Immediately, Kayden grimaced and tried to correct herself. Those were slurs, she told herself. They were offensive, they were bad, they were the sort of thing you shouldn't say to polite company. They were the sort of thing you shouldn't even _think_.

But it was hard, because she didn't know how else to address them. She'd gotten too used to using words like that, and she'd spent too much time around people who spoke the same way and used those words, too. They came to her too naturally to just remove from her vocabulary that easily.

Sometimes, they even snuck in when she wasn't paying attention, and they'd slip out before she even realized it.

And she hated it. She hated that she had so little control over her own language that she could use words like that without thinking. She hated how they made her feel, like she was dirtying _herself_ by saying and thinking them. She hated the way that they'd become so ingrained into her vocabulary that she'd become a virtual stereotype somewhere along the way.

She hated what _Max_ had turned her into.

Because it _was_ Max who had made her into this kind of person. It was him who had convinced her with honeyed words, fork-tongued speeches, and oh-so-reasonable sounding rationalizations that the ni…that _they_ were a more brutish, violent, and less civilized race. It was him who had made her believe that the… _hispanics_ and the _asians_ were stealing jobs from hardworking whites and peddling drugs to innocent children.

It was made all the harder to shake that when at least some of it was _true_. Not _all_ of them, probably, maybe, but when Kayden's little list of those dangerous sorts who were actually good seemed so paltry and small, compared to all the asians she saw proudly wearing the ABB's colors, all the hispanics and blacks she saw shooting up in alleyways and on street corners… In the face of that, Max's words seemed all the more true.

And even in death, the specter of his influence still clung to her. A cloying, choking presence in the back of her head that dug steel-nailed fingers into her brain and tried to drag her back down for every inch she clawed forward.

She tried to change, to stop thinking that way, to be a _better person_ , she really did. It was just so _hard_ , and she'd thought that way for _so long,_ and all of her old friends thought that way, too, and sometimes, she couldn't help but believe it would be easier if she didn't try to change, if she just stayed who she was, even if she increasingly found herself hating what she saw in the mirror.

But then, she thought of her Aster, her beautiful baby girl, who would one day grow up to be a beautiful woman and want to bring home a boy to introduce to her mother. To Kayden.

 _What if that boy is black?_ Kayden had to wonder. _What if the man she falls deeply in love with is black?_

Or latino? Or asian? Or any of the other races that the Empire espoused as being _lesser_ and _scum_?

What would her little girl think, if she brought home someone like that and Kayden hadn't changed, if she brought home someone like that and Kayden couldn't stop herself and said something offensive?

Kayden couldn't bear to imagine what her daughter would think of her. How hurt and angry and betrayed she would feel. How _disappointed_.

Getting away from the Empire and its toxic beliefs was why she had left Max, after all. She didn't want her baby girl to grow up that way, having to listen to the Empire's poison, being forced and cajoled into their way of thinking and their lifestyles. It made her sick to think of her precious little girl growing up like Theo did, in a world and with people who valued her only as _Kaiser's_ daughter, as _Kaiser's_ heir, of her living with a father whose love came with conditions and could only be earned with _strength_ and _powers_.

To see what it had done to Theo, how it had ruined the poor boy…

She hated that, and she hated the idea that her own prejudices and biases might one day drive a wedge between them, might build a gap that was impossible to bridge. She hated it and she feared it like only one other thing in her life.

"For Aster," became her mantra, her rallying cry to muster her resolve. Whenever she watched the news and saw the ABB or the Merchants causing trouble, when she caught herself thinking of it as the kind of thing "their kind" did and the trouble that "those people" caused, she stopped and scolded herself, berated herself for it. She told herself it was wrong and she was wrong to think that way.

 _For Aster_.

Because there was nothing Kayden wasn't willing to do for the sake of the sole beacon of light in her life.

 _Nothing_.

Even if it meant forcing herself to change. Even if it meant tearing down her old habits and ways of thinking one word at a time, one sentence at a time, one day at a time. Even if there were times when it seemed too daunting and too impossible and too far out of reach, and all she wanted to do was give up. Even then, she kept going, because that was when it mattered _most_.

Her little girl was worth it.

And so Kayden endured. She moved forward. She forced herself to take each step, dragging herself towards that ever elusive goal of being a mother that Aster could be proud of, that Aster could love with all her heart, so that even if no one else in the whole world, falling apart as it was, gave her anything, Aster could always trust that her mother would be there for her.

Even when "the next step" might be a giant leap of faith. A risk, wagered against a better future.

"Mind if I sit, dear?" a sudden voice jerked Kayden from her thoughts.

When she blinked and turned to look, the familiar face of an elderly woman smiled down at her.

"Oh," said Kayden, smiling back, "not at all, Mrs. Watson."

She shifted in her seat and made room for Mrs. Watson to sit down.

"Thank you, dear," said the elderly woman as she sank into the seat next to Kayden with a sigh.

A moment later, the bus jerked and started moving, again.

"So," Mrs. Watson said conversationally, "it's been awhile, hasn't it, Mrs. Anders?"

"Russel," Kayden corrected before she could think of it. "It's Kayden Russel, now."

Mrs. Watson gasped.

"Oh! The divorce was finalized?"

"Yes," replied Kayden. "Max was, um, he was in the building when…when that bomb went off at Medhall, and…well…"

"Oh," said Mrs. Watson sympathetically. She offered a consoling pat on Kayden's hand. "It must have been very hard, hearing about that. Just dreadful."

"Yeah…"

It shouldn't have been. She should have been celebrating, when she heard the news, because it meant she was free and she'd never have to hear his honeyed words spoken from that forked, silver tongue ever again, would never again have to worry that he might try and threaten her for custody of Aster, but some part of her had still mourned. Some part of her had still _cared_. Had still _loved_ him. Had still felt like something important had been _ripped_ away from her, that day.

Damn him. Damn Max for digging his claws in so deep.

It made her hate him even more, that she hadn't gotten over him, even after leaving. And without him around to rage at for what he'd done to her, intentionally or not, she found herself with nowhere to direct her anger except at herself, for being so stupid she still hadn't purged every iota of affection for Max Anders from every part of her.

"Well, without a client to represent," she went on, "his lawyers gave it up and agreed to settle on the last few details, so…"

"Well, at least there's that," agreed Mrs. Watson. "Bloodsuckers, the lot of them. How's poor Theodore handling the news?"

Kayden shrugged.

"I…don't know. He and Max didn't have any kind of close relationship, and he didn't seem too upset about it, really. He…didn't actually react much at all, when he heard the news."

Was he hurting? Kayden didn't know. She tried to at least show him some warmth and took care of all his needs, but he wasn't hers. They didn't have the kind of connection, the emotional bond that she had with Aster. The only reason she'd taken him in was because no one else in the Empire _cared_ , and that left her the only one willing to actually look after him.

"I'm thinking about taking him to see a therapist," she decided, then and there, as the words spilled out of her mouth. "Maybe he'll open up to someone who doesn't have their own baggage with Max?"

"Good for you, dear," Mrs. Watson congratulated her. Kayden gave her a weak smile back. "Is that what you're doing now?"

"Now?"

"Finding a therapist for Theodore to talk to."

"Oh, ah, no, I took the day off, because I have an appointment I needed to go to."

Mrs. Watson's brow creased with worry.

"Oh dear. Nothing bad, I hope?"

Kayden blinked at her, nonplussed.

"Wh — oh! No, no, I'm fine. Just…something I've been putting off for a while."

"Something important, then?"

Kayden smiled, but she wasn't sure it reached her eyes. She was sure some of her nervousness must have been showing through. "Life-changing, maybe," she answered.

Quite literally. A lot of things were riding on what happened, today, and whichever way things went, something big was going to change about her life.

"Oh. Oh my." Mrs. Watson smiled shrewdly. "Thinking you might have another one on the way?"

Kayden's brow furrowed. "Another one?"

"A bun in the oven, dear."

"A bun in the — oh!" Kayden's cheeks grew warm. "No, no, nothing like that! I mean, when would I even… I don't have the time to… With who, even —"

"You'd be surprised," Mrs. Watson said knowingly. "I've known plenty of women who, shall we say, sought the comfort of strangers during a rough divorce. Some who even shacked back up with their husbands while the lawyers were still hashing things out."

Kayden blanched. "You think Max and I… That I would… _Really_?"

The horrible thing was that she could imagine it happening. If he had caught her at the right moment, and as Max was oh so very good at doing, said the right words to her, she might have taken him back, for the night. Just so that she could have one night where she wasn't lonely, where she didn't feel like she was one woman trying to carve out a place for herself and her daughter in the big, wide world with only a spoon.

She would've hated herself, afterwards, but she could imagine it happening.

"Sometimes, dear, the heart wants what it wants."

Wasn't that the truth?

Kayden shook her head. "No, nothing like that. Just…looking to see if I can get a better job, that's all. I'm going to see if it's something I'm interested in."

"I thought you loved your current job," Mrs. Watson probed.

"I do," said Kayden. "I really do. But trying to raise two kids on my current salary _and_ pay my rent is a bit difficult. I'm hoping this new opportunity will let me have a little more wiggle room in my budget."

It wasn't entirely untrue, but it didn't even come close to her true motivation.

"Well, good luck to you."

Kayden gave her a half-hearted smile. "Thanks."

Mrs. Watson suddenly lit up.

"Oh! Have I told you the good news, yet?"

"Um, good news?"

"I'm going to be a grandmother!"

Kayden's heart skipped a beat. Something nasty curled in her belly and refused to budge.

"You…you are?"

"They just told me about it yesterday! My little Allie, three months pregnant! Can you believe it?"

"That's…that's wonderful!" said Kayden, injecting as much cheer into her voice as she could. If Mrs. Watson noticed that her excitement wasn't quite all real, she didn't show it.

"Isn't it? Oh, in six short months, I'll be a grandmother, and I'll get to bore you to tears talking about my new grandchild."

"Do…do they know what it is, yet?"

"They want to keep it a surprise," said Mrs. Watson, rolling her eyes with a fond but exasperated smile. "It's Johnny who talked her into that, you mark my words."

Johnny. Mrs. Watson's son-in-law.

A ni —

 _No_ , Kayden scolded herself, before the thought could fully form. _Be better than that_. _For Aster._

But it was hard. Because her first reaction had been to think, "of course he did," because, "that's the way they work." Deceiving, convincing, lying to make you think they were something they weren't. They lulled you into a false sense of security so that they could take advantage of you.

Those were Purity's thoughts. The Empire's thoughts. The way their members thought and looked at the world. It wasn't the way _Kayden_ was supposed to think. It wasn't how _Kayden_ wanted to look at the world. It wasn't the person she was trying so hard to become.

Mrs. Watson's Johnny made it a little easier to shake. He was _successful_ , a computer technician that many companies — including, on occasion, Medhall itself — had called upon to test their cybersecurity. He made a lot of money working a good, honest, well-paying job, and he was purported to be a wonderful, very caring person.

Mrs. Watson had gone off several times to crow about how proud she was that her Allie had married someone who could take care of her so well.

"Have they thought up any names, yet?" Kayden asked, trying not to let the inner conflict show.

Mrs. Watson snorted. "Knowing Allie, they'll make a huge list, then wait until the last minute to pick one. That girl has never been good with making decisions in advance. Why, if it had been up to her to pop the question, they'd still be dancing around the idea of getting married!"

Kayden smiled and laughed like she was expected to, but her heart wasn't in it.

Mrs. Watson sighed. "Oh, my George would have loved to hear all about this. He was looking forward to being a grandfather."

Safe ground — Kayden was ashamed of the surge of relief that rushed through her chest.

"How is he?"

"Bad," Mrs. Watson told her sadly. "It's been getting worse, recently. He comes and goes, and even when he _is_ there, he isn't all there, you know? The doctors say it won't be long, now. A few weeks, maybe a month or two."

"I'm sorry," Kayden said sympathetically. Mrs. Watson only smiled.

"Oh, dear, there's nothing for you to be sorry about. But thank you." She sighed again, bittersweet. "My George gave me thirty-eight good years. I'm thankful for that, at least."

She shook her head. "But listen to me ramble on about my troubles! What about you, Kayden? Anyone caught your eye, recently?"

Kayden smiled and deflected. "No, of course not! I'm too busy taking care of Aster, when would I have the time…"

For a while, they continued on like that, chatting about lighter, less heavy things, until at last, Mrs. Watson had to go.

"Looks like this is my stop," she said, turning back to Kayden to smile. "It was wonderful talking to you again. Maybe next time it won't be so long?"

"Hopefully," was all Kayden could say.

Mrs. Watson, all of sixty-five and looking every year of it, gave Kayden's hand another pat. "Best of luck to you. Tell Theodore I said hello, and give Aster a kiss for me, would you?"

"I will," she promised.

Then, her conversation partner stood and walked away.

With Mrs. Watson gone, Kayden was left alone, again, with nothing but her thoughts for company. Slowly, around her, the bus emptied and filled, emptied and filled, until finally, the passengers started to trickle out, leaving behind only her and a handful of other people, none of them familiar faces. Fortunately for Kayden's state of mind, she was only going across town, and the route the bus took never went anywhere near the Docks or the Trainyard or Old Town.

No one who got on had skin any darker than a light tan.

Several times, she thought about turning back. Several times, she thought about hopping off and taking another bus back home. Several times, she thought about abandoning the plan she'd come up with — ill-advised as some might say it was — and continuing on with her life as normal.

It was tempting. The closer the bus came to Kayden's ultimate destination, the more turning back and going home sounded like the better idea. It was the easier choice, the one that required less from her. Less risk. Less chance of blowing up in her face. Less her trusting things to work out.

But every time it seemed like she would crumble under that temptation, she took a deep breath, steeled herself, and repeated her mantra.

 _For Aster._

At last, her stop came up, and Kayden stood and walked woodenly through the aisles, down the steps, and out the door and onto the sidewalk. A moment later, the bus pulled away, and Kayden looked up at the imposing structure of the PRT ENE's headquarters that stood across the street. Only the logo plastered to the front of it truly set it apart from the buildings around it, and yet it felt larger and grander than the ordinary office buildings that flanked it on either side.

For a long moment, she just stood there, staring up at it and fighting with herself. To go in, or not? To go forward, or run away like a scared child?

Running away sounded better, but she hadn't come this far just to chicken out at the finish line.

So, she reached into her purse and pulled out the item she'd gotten for just this occasion, a cheap domino mask that barely hid any of her face, then tied her hair back, hoping that would be enough for this.

 _No turning back. For Aster._

Then, steeling herself again, she crossed the street, walked up to the front door, and stepped into the lobby of the PRT building.

It turned out to be surprisingly, disappointingly normal.

It was a lot like the lobby of any office building, with a big desk near the far wall, signs labelled with directions and floor numbers for different services, and even color-coded patterns painted onto the floor and walls that had their own destinations attached to a legend on one of the maps. There were halls that stretched deeper into the building, "corporate" photos of the Wards and Protectorate, past and present, and even tastefully done architecture and furniture, like the headquarters of some major, billion-dollar company.

It reminded her of the Medhall building, funnily enough. Both housed capes, even — or had, since Medhall had been destroyed.

 _Except these ones are the kind that would arrest you and throw you in jail._

Kayden took a deep breath, fixed the cheap domino mask to make sure it was on right, quelled her nerves as best as she was able, and strode up to the front desk as confidently as she could, being all of five-foot-two.

Fuck, it was easier to seem confident and imposing when you were flying and glowing so brightly that no one could see your face to tell exactly how nervous you were.

The person manning the desk — in a stroke of incredible irony, her nameplate said "Sarah Manning" — didn't even bother to look up. "Can I help you?" she asked, sounding bored.

"Yes," Kayden said, and her voice came out braver than she felt. "I'm here to have a meeting with Director Piggot."

The receptionist frowned.

"The Director is currently in conference, regarding an upcoming event," the receptionist recited, only now looking up, "but I can page her to let her know…"

The receptionist stilled, eyes widening as her hand began to drift towards the edge of the desk, where the panic button was undoubtedly hidden. Kayden stayed perfectly still, well aware that there were likely sprayers of containment foam built into the lobby all over the place. She deliberately kept a tight lid on her powers.

"But I can let her know that you're here, if you're willing to wait."

"That's… That's fine," Kayden said. "I'm not in any hurry, right now."

She'd told the babysitter that she was likely to be gone most of the day.

The receptionist hesitated for a moment, and her hand didn't move from where it hovered near the hidden button. Kayden tried not to keep glancing at it, so that the receptionist didn't think she was trying to plan around stopping it from being pressed.

"And who should I tell her wants to meet her?"

"Purity."

The receptionist's face twitched and shut down into a placid, polite expression that Kayden had practiced in the mirror for weeks for talking to her clients. On the inside, she had to be panicking and trying to keep herself from freaking out.

Kayden couldn't blame her. There and then, she was panicking and freaking out and trying not to let it show, too, even though her stomach was twisting itself into knots and her heart was beating so loudly that she was sure everyone in the lobby must have been able to hear it.

God, maybe this was a mistake? She could still turn around, couldn't she? They didn't have her face. They didn't have her name. All they had was some woman claiming to be Purity, so she could still —

 _No. For Aster._

"And the purpose for your visit…?"

Kayden gathered her fleeing courage and mustered as much confidence as she could.

"I'm here to discuss the terms of my surrender…and joining the Protectorate."

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

 **Not exactly to canon is this Purity. By Wildbow's reckoning, she's not a very good person. Like, at all. That seems to be Wildbow's default position on _people_ , though, that they're all pretty shitty, selfish to the extreme, and the best they can aspire to is to not be a complete monster.**

 **I prefer my characters to be treated a little more gently, so Purity here is a little softer around the edges - still not a _great_ person, but trying to be a better one for the little girl she's raising. She's still got a ways to go, though.**

 **If you want to support me as a writer so I can pay my bills, I'm on P A treon (p a treon . com (slash) James_D_Fawkes), and if P a treon is too long term, you could buy me a ko-fi (ko-fi . com (slash) jamesdfawkes).**

 **Or if you want to commission something from me, check out my Deviant Art page to see my rates.**

 **As always, read, review, and enjoy.**


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